My eye is caught by a flash of white out to sea. A gannet! I watch as it flies in great arcs across the sea and then suddenly swoops, folding its great wings at the last moment. It enters the sea like an arrow and I’m sure I can hear the impact. I use binoculars to watch the area where it disappeared, and in a few minutes it bobs up like a cork, fish in beak. It has to heave on its wings in order to become airborne, only to repeat the process time and time again. I could watch it for hours. Eventually it flies off, close to the water, crop heavy with fish.
The tide must be at its lowest point by now and as the waves rise and fall in the bay below me, rocks and seaweed appear and disappear in the swell. Then three dark shapes appear about a metre or so out to sea. First they’re there, then they’re gone. It’s definitely not rocks or seaweed. What is it? A seal? It’s too small and seals don’t normally behave like that. I watch, fascinated, and train the binoculars on it. This time when it dives, I see a tail quite clearly. It must be an otter! He makes his way along the bay – always a metre or two from the shore line. He dives and resurfaces, takes a look round then dives again, both playful and industrious at the same time. Eventually he moves behind a large rock out of my line of vision. The clouds thin and I consider closing my eyes and nodding off in the warmth when I see the three dark shapes again, head, body and tail. A moment ago they were to the left of that dark patch of sea. Then in the dark patch and now to the right of it. He’s making his way, slowly but surely, towards me.
When he finally arrives directly in front of me, he turns and heads towards the beach. I watch him come ashore not twenty metres away. His wet fur glistens in the sun and his sleek, lithe body appears to flow over and around the rocks. There’s something in his mouth. He finally comes to rest on a large flat rock and holds the fish in his front paws. The water drops on his long snout whiskers shine and sparkle as he proceeds to chew off a mouthful. He spills morsels on the ground and chews with his mouth open, which lets me see his sharp, pointed, white teeth. The fish looks tough for he moves his head and jaw up and down in an effort to pull it to pieces.
He seems completely at home in his environment, quite unselfconscious, oblivious of my presence, totally involved in the business of eating and living his life as he does every day. I feel as though I’m spying on him, intruding into his private world. Does the fact that I consider it a privilege to witness such behaviour make it any less intrusive? I don’t know. What I do know is that in these special brief moments, I feel as if we are locked in a secret liaison. I am totally focused on this fascinating, elusive wild creature. In this brief time I am, like him, living and breathing in a moment that appears to last for ever.
Now he’s back to the water for a second course. The next two catches are of smaller creatures – I can’t tell what they are – perhaps crabs. He’s brought them both back to the same rock before eating them. The incoming tide soon engulfs the rock and the otter makes his way further along the shore. He moves out of sight, but not out of mind. He is the first otter I’ve ever seen, and I’m thrilled.
Janet Willoner, 2016
Overlooking the River Stour
The swallows flew in the curves of an eight
Above the river-gleam
In the wet June’s last beam:
Like little crossbows animate
The swallows flew in the curves of an eight
Above the river-gleam.
Planing up shavings of crystal spray
A moor-hen darted out
From the bank thereabout,
And through the stream-shine ripped his way;
Planing up shavings of crystal spray
A moor-hen darted out.
Closed were the kingcups; and the mead
Dripped in monotonous green,
Though the day’s morning sheen
Had shown it golden and honeybee’d;
Closed were the kingcups; and the mead
Dripped in monotonous green.
And never I turned my head, alack,
While these things met my gaze
Through the pane’s drop-drenched glaze,
To see the more behind my back . . .
O never I turned, but let, alack,
These less things hold my gaze!
Thomas Hardy, published 1917
Black and shadowy are not words usually connected with summer, a season generally considered to be one of colour and warmth, brightening our moods with pastel-shaded landscapes of foxglove and poppy. But against this backdrop another world exists, less colourful and obvious, although just as vibrant, for summer’s tapestry is interwoven with a wide variety of shades. Many creatures – the black, the drab and the furtive – hide from the sun and daylight in the damper, shadier areas of our gardens and homes, those pockets of darkness among summery tints.
As the sun sinks in a blaze of orange and copper streaks, daylight begins to fade. The summer triangle of stars appears in turquoise skies, and the first bats start to emerge, before other nocturnal mammals like foxes and hedgehogs.
The old-fashioned name for a bat is ‘flittermouse’, a nickname that suits them very well, as they flicker above the garden in the dusk air. Bats’ furry skin ranges in colour from pale brown to black, and they spend daytime hours roosting in the shadows of houses, crevices and trees. They fly on webbed, fingery-boned wings using echolocation to source their prey. Their staple diet is small flying insects such as midges, gnats and moths, and despite their diminutive size each bat can eat up to three thousand insects a night. It is a pleasure to watch bats swoop and dance in the roseate glow of the sleepy sun, while bees still hum among the herb and thistle beds, before becoming dark fleeting shadows against the backdrop of an amber hay moon.
When gazing up at bats, it appears to be a soundless world. Pipistrelles are the species most likely to be spotted above our gardens. In the 1990s they were separated into two distinct species, common and soprano, the distinguishing feature being their high frequency calls, a noise inaudible to human ears. Using a bat detector brings the sounds of the bat world alive. They are not silent at all but emit an assortment of chirrups, clicks and warbles.
Detectors are also able to identify when a bat captures prey, and devours its victim with a gratifying slurp. While they feed in the dewy softness of dusk and the evening chorus of birdsong fills the air with bells and harps, one of the most turbulent and powerful battles in the natural world is underway, the ever-evolving abattoir known as the food chain.
Many animals, birds and bats eat insects. Even insects eat insects. This poses a conundrum for nature lovers, especially entomologists. On creating a bug-friendly garden, there is a hint of irony to see a wren hopping on top of the log pile, with a beak full of transparent wings and spindly legs, or to hear the whack of a snail’s shell as it is hammered against a song thrush’s anvil. Even in the height of enchanted summer hours, there is no room for sentimentality when it comes to nature’s menu.
Like bats, many insects are dark coloured and live in the damp, shaded parts of our gardens, under stones, slate, tree bark, logs, rotting wood, leaf litter, compost, shells, plant pots; in fact insects will use anything as long as the conditions are right. If we look closely at the dingy, cooler places, we find a world worth exploring and just as wonderful as the discoveries in a seashore rock pool. It may not be high on everyone’s ‘to do’ summer list, but there is nothing nicer than crawling along the ground, feeling the soggy dampness of grass on your knees, and the squelchy, slippery sensation of mud squeezing through your fingers. Entering the world of ground-dwelling bugs is a bit like stepping into an old church on a stifling summer’s afternoon where inside it is cool, musty and dim. It feels like another world, although outside the sun still shines, birds carry on singing and the sky remains blue.
The dank world of insects and bugs is enlivened by an array of scents, textures and colours. Damp wood is often lightened by splashes of verdant moss and lime-green lichen. These moist environments smell earthy and wood
y, and are just as invigorating as the perfumed fragrances of rose and honeysuckle. There are many things to touch: the steely hardness of stone, the rough, corrugated grooves of bark and even the delicate tickle of the creatures themselves.
It is a wonderful experience to come across hidden clusters of flaxen pearls among leaf litter. These are slug eggs, glittering like jewels among the leafy carpets of brown and gold. One of the most common and fascinating creatures are woodlice; when disturbed they scurry frantically, looking like a troop of armoured tanks surprised in battle. From a distance they look grey and uninteresting, but through a magnifying glass it is sometimes possible to catch hints of mottled pink, yellow or white against the silvery sheen of evening dew.
When dusk fades, nature’s handover takes place. Creatures of the night pick up the baton. With colouring that complements the darker tones of night, bats twirl in starlight and small, daytime-shy bugs sneak from their hiding places as nasturtium heads nod in sleep. Within each seasonal hue, every creature has its place, and even in summertime the dark, shady places are teeming with life.
Jacqueline Bain, 2016
The richest, fullest time of year is when June is wearing to an end, when one knows without the almanac that spring is over and gone. Nowhere in England is one more sensible of the change to fullest summer than in this low-lying, warmest corner of Hampshire.
The cuckoo ceases to weary us with its incessant call, and the nightingale sings less and less frequently. The passionate season is well-nigh over for the birds; their fountain of music begins to run dry. The cornfields and waste grounds are everywhere splashed with the intense scarlet of poppies. Summer has no rain in all her wide, hot heavens to give to her thirsty fields and has sprinkled them with the red fiery moisture from her own veins. And as colour changes, growing deeper and more intense, so do sounds change: for the songs of yesterday there are shrill hunger-cries.
One of the oftenest heard in all the open woods, in hedges, and even out in the cornfields is the curious musical call of the young blackbird. It is like the chuckle of the adult, but not so loud, full, happy, and prolonged; it is shriller, and drops at the end to a plaintive, impatient sound, a little pathetic – a cry of the young bird to its too long absent mother. When very hungry he emits this shrill musical call at intervals of ten to fifteen seconds; it may be heard distinctly a couple of hundred yards away.
The numbers of young blackbirds and throstles apparently just out of the nest astonish one. They are not only in the copses and hedges, and on almost every roadside tree, but you constantly see them on the ground in the lanes and public roads, standing still, quite unconscious of danger. The poor helpless bird looks up at you in a sort of amazement, never having seen men walking or riding on bicycles; but he hesitates, not knowing whether to fly away or stand still. Thrush or blackbird, he is curiously interesting to look at. The young thrush, with his yellowish-white spotty breast, the remains of down on his plumage his wide yellow mouth, and raised head with large, fixed, toad-like eyes, has a distinctly reptilian appearance. Not so the young blackbird standing motionless on the road, in doubt too as to what you are; his short tail raised giving him an incipient air of blackbird jauntiness; his plumage not brown, indeed, as we describe it, but rich chestnut black, like the chestnut-black hair of a beautiful Hampshire girl of that precious type with oval face and pale dark skin. A pretty creature, rich in colour, with a musical pathetic voice, waiting so patiently to be visited and fed, and a weasel perhaps watching him from the roadside grass with hungry, bright little eyes! How they die – thrushes and blackbirds – at this perilous period in their lives! I sometimes see what looks like a rudely-painted figure of a bird on the hard road: it is a young blackbird that had not the sense to get out of the way of a passing team, and was crushed flat by a hoof or wheel. It is but one in a thousand that perishes in that way. One has to remember that these two species of thrush-throstle and blackbird – are in extraordinary abundance, that next to starlings and chaffinches they abound over all species; that they are exceedingly prolific, beginning to lay in this southern county in February, and rearing at least three broods in the season; and that when winter comes round again the thrush and blackbird population will be just about what it was before.
Fruit-eating birds to not much vex the farmer in this almost fruitless country. Thrushes and finches and sparrows are nothing to him: the starling, if he pays any attention to the birds, he looks on us as a good friend.
At the farm there are two very old yew trees growing in the back-yard, and one of these, in an advanced state of decay, is full of holds and cavities in its larger branches. Here about half-a-dozen pairs of starlings nest every year, and by the middle of June there are several broods of fully-fledged young. At this time it was amusing to watch the parent birds at their task, coming and going all day long, flying out and away straight as arrows to this side and that, every bird to its own favourite hunting-ground. Some had their grounds in the meadow, just before the house where the cows and geese were, and it was easy to watch their movements. Out of the yew the bird would shoot, and in ten or twelve seconds would be down walking about in that busy, plodding, rook-like way the starling has when looking for something; and presently, darting his beak into the turf, he would drag out something large, and back he would fly to his young with a big, conspicuous, white object in his beak. These white objects which he was busily gathering every day, from dawn to dark, were full-grown grubs of the cockchafer. When watching these birds at their work it struck me that the enormous increase of starlings all over the country in recent years may account for the fact that great cockchafer years do not now occur. In former years these beetles were sometimes in such numbers that they swarmed in the air in places, and stripped the oaks of their leaves in mid-summer. It is now more than ten years since I saw cockchafers in considerable numbers, and for a long time past I have not heard of their appearance in swarms anywhere.
The starling is in some ways a bad bird, a cherry thief, and a robber of other birds’ nesting-places; yaffle and nuthatch must hate him, but if his ministrations have caused an increase of even one per cent, in the hay crop, and the milk and butter supply, he is, from our point of view, not wholly bad.
In late June the unkept hedges are in the fullness of their midsummer beauty. After sunset the fragrance of the honeysuckle is almost too much: standing near the blossom-laden hedge when there is no wind to dissipate the odour, there is a heaviness in it which makes it like some delicious honeyed liquor which we are drinking in. The honeysuckle is indeed first among the ‘melancholy flowers’ that give out their fragrance by night. In the daytime, when the smell is faint, the pale sickly blossoms are hardly noticed even where they are seen in masses and drape the hedges. Of all the hedge-flowers, the rose alone is looked at, its glory being so great as to make all other blooms seem nothing but bleached or dead discoloured leaves in comparison.
He would indeed be a vainly ambitious person who should attempt to describe this queen of all wild flowers, joyous or melancholy; but substituting flower for fruit, and the delight of the eye for the pleasure of taste, we may in speaking of it quote the words of a famous old writer, used in praise of the strawberry. He said that doubtless God Almighty could have made a better berry if He had so minded, but doubtless God Almighty never did.
I esteem the rose not only for that beauty which sets it highest among flowers, but also because it will not suffer admiration when removed from its natural surroundings. In this particular it resembles certain brilliant sentient beings that languish and lose all their charms in captivity. Pluck your rose and bring it indoors, and place it side by side with other blossoms – yellow flag and blue periwinkle, and shining yellow marsh-marigold, and poppy and cornflower – and it has no luster, and is no more to the soul than a flower made out of wax or paper. Look at it here, in the brilliant sunlight and the hot wind, waving to the wind on its long thorny sprays all over the vast disordered hedges; here in rosy masses, there starring t
he rough green tangle with its rosy stars – a rose-coloured cloud on the earth and Summer bridal veil – and you will refuse to believe (since it will be beyond your power to imagine) that anywhere on earth, in any hot or temperate climate, there exist a more divinely beautiful sight.
W. H. Hudson, Hampshire Days, 1903
On a summer night I look up, absorbing the darkness. It takes a few seconds for my eyes to adjust, to focus on the incandescent balls of gas that decorate the sky. Its magnitude is breathtaking: endless possibilities in all directions, clusters of magic in gentle shades of blue, white, pink and orange. I’m no expert at stargazing, but I lose myself simply looking.
The Plough is the first constellation to reveal itself. Part of the Ursa Major, the Great Bear, it never sinks below the horizon. As a result it remains by my side all year round, a familiar friend in the sky. In the summer months it rests higher up, the bowl of its saucepan shape leaning towards the ground as if beckoning us to touch it. Using the right-hand stars of the Plough as a guide I locate Polaris, the North Star. I find it comforting that this star, 434 light years away, offers humans a safe navigational tool to locate true north.
Stars march across the sky in all directions, exploding balls of hydrogen and helium illuminating the night sky. I am seeking out my favourite constellation, Orion, a Greek hunter trapped among the stars. The easiest starting point is his belt, and before you know it, his shoulders and feet appear. He commands the sky, his shoulders stretching broadly, his feet sturdy and secure. A dark night like tonight also reveals the Orion nebula, a fuzzy patch that simmers at the tip of his sword. Using my telescope, I can make out a beautiful swirling pattern of dust. Moving within it are oxygen, silicon and other minerals which make up many of the rocks here on Earth. This tiny patch of dust, no bigger than a dot in the dark sky, is 1,600 light years away and yet 167 million million miles wide. I am in awe.
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