Summer

by Melissa Harrison

  Elsewhere on the imposing cliffs kittiwakes nest en masse, dainty and pristine. The constant ‘Kitti-wake’, repeated relentlessly, provides a soundtrack to the veritable soap opera unfolding on the cliffs below, where a life-and-death drama takes place under the watchful eye of my favourite seabird, the shag. I challenge anyone to look into the eyes of a shag and not be entranced by their emerald-green hue, which perfectly complements the iridescent sheen of the birds themselves. The young shags may leave a lot to be desired aesthetically – they are prehistoric, reptilian and altogether tatty – but they are still a splendid fixture of the season.

  Away from the cliffs things are far from dull; here, on the island tops, a multitude of terns nestle amid historical relics, content and watchful until, of course, you stray too close. An arctic tern in summer is a formidable sight. These marvellous migrants tirelessly pursue all foolish enough to venture nearby – human or gull – putting on a fine show as they dance, swallow-like, in the breeze.

  Sadly, all visitors must depart; but, as the boats set sail for shore, grey seals swim within metres of the vessels, their almost canine curiosity matched by the delight of their adoring fans. Eventually, the seals withdraw and the sound of seabirds melts away. But it is worth taking one last backward glance at the impressive sight of the Farnes, framed by the summer sky: rugged, wild, untamed and perfect in their own way.

  James Common, 2016

  Pausing, the year suspends its drama. The hayfields are empty and silent; the yellow-grey of stubble sinks already below the rising green of the after-grass: for summer thunderstorms have watered the meadows.

  July is a time of little events, many and intimate, hidden under the quiet routine of village days. Life tastes good to the cottager this month. The sense of surprise may have gone from it, even as maturity lacks the unexpectedness of youth, and the harvest waits its moment. But there are little heralding harvests that show the way to the fullness of the later year. Go through the village street at twilight when thatched roof and lean-to are blurred against the silver sky. The cottage gardens are dotted with squat, headless ghosts, white against the dusk. Lean over the fence and peer closely and you will see no phantoms, but harmless, old lace curtains swathed round ripening fruit bushes, against the ravaging of birds. For the soft fruit harvest has come again.

  Throughout the long evenings of July, the village women bend low in their gardens over raspberry cane and currant bush, gooseberry and loganberry. Time after time, baskets of shining fruit, purple currants and red and yellow gooseberry globes are taken into the gloom of cottage kitchens.

  As the women pick the fruit, the men are busy with the vegetables. In this pause between haysel and harvest, when the work on the farm ends at its stated moment of the day, leaving the men free during the summer evenings, it is the gardeners’ chance. Tenderly they care for their rule-straight rows of vegetables, staking the swelling peas and beans, watering, hoeing and weeding. Allotments gleam with lines of pale green salads, contrasted with tossing plumes of darker carrot tops; the pods of peas range up and down their staked plants like crotchets on a page of written music. Soon will come the time for the annual Village Show, when the pick of the vegetable gardens for miles around will lie in state, washed and trimmed, under marquees in the Rectory Meadow, and lucky bunches of giant onions or clumps of scrubbed potatoes will proudly bear the blue card of First Prize.

  The men work into the night; the sound of the hoe comes from the cabbage patch when it is so dark that nothing shows but the white of the lilies and pinks and the ducks asleep by the pond.

  But it is not only the fruit and vegetables that call just now.

  The cottage flower garden is the most essentially English thing of our countryside, and this month it flames with blossoms. Bees tumble among the rainbow colours of the herbaceous borders and roses smother cottage porches and darken casement windows. This love of flowers is so strong, that in his cabbage patch the farm labourer will sacrifice some of the limited space to them, and splashes of blue and crimson bloom among onions and beans. Even the village railway station glows with flowers, and the old stationmaster hoes between his rose bushes as he awaits the arrival of the uptrain to London.

  It is summer’s turning point and everything is full and lush, be it rush of flowers in the gardens or fling of convolvulus over the hedges in the lane, or the milky stream of meadowsweet in the ditches.

  The sunny days are hot and heavy with the sound of bees. As the ploughboy goes for his beer at midday to the Black Swan, he pauses and loiters under the bee-covered, flowering lime trees, inarticulately wondering at this beauty of scent and sound. The lanes are full of fledglings that as yet know no fear, while the air is broken by young swallows learning to fly.

  But in contrast to all this swift movement of young life, there are the hoers. Six in a line they stand, backs bent in the heat, weeding the rows of swedes in the root fields. Their movements across the field seem so slow as to be hardly perceptible. Six hoes go out at the same angle to weed and thin among the roots; six identical twists of the tool lift the weeds; six pairs of legs move slowly forward. Hour on hour these figures work without word or divergence. The air above them quivers in the heat.

  Through the afternoon the cows laze in the sloping meadows. But now it is milking time. They sleepily turn their heads as they hear the cowman lift the latch of the gate. He calls to them across the field.

  ‘Frump; Daisy and Moth; Flossy and Snowdrop; Dapple.’

  They swing themselves round like heavy ships and move in orderly line across the meadow. Slowly they saunter over the dry caked mud of the farmyard and each cow goes to her ordained place in the coolness of the whitewashed cowshed. The udders are full and heavy, and the cows are unstinting as they give themselves to the milkers. The men sit on the three-legged stools, peaks of caps turned to the nape of their necks, resting their heads against the hot flanks of the cows. Gently and firmly they pull at the udders and with a light, squirting noise the milk falls in to the pail, foaming with the impact. Soon the cows are all milked, and quietly the orderly line moves out again into the westering sun – Bess and Queenie, Dapple and Snowdrop.

  As the month goes on to its close, there is a feeling that the stage is being set for the drama of the harvest. The faint scent of wheat in flower is perceptible no longer, and the fields of grain stand high and firm. The oats are turning silver and there is a warm flush on the wheat.

  But there is still time to pause and dally, and on these lengthy summer evenings the youth of the village is free. The lanes are heavy and secret for courting, and as the farm lads walk out with their girls in the long shadowed light, the leafage bends low to hide them. Their murmuring is broken by shouts from the village green, where the local cricket team is playing a neighbouring village. Under the bordering elms the old men sit to watch the game.

  The evening air grows cooler. Outside their cottage doors sit the aged people. In the dusk their white aprons and white shirtsleeves show in the gardens like clumps of white blossom. Silently they sit, hour after hour, with tired hands at rest on their laps and eyes looking quietly around them at the swallows nesting in their thatch, or the cat asleep under the roses, or the gold in the sky.

  Night falls upon the village very gently.

  Clare Leighton, The Farmer’s Year:

  A Calendar of English Husbandry, 1933

  Summer holidays at my uncle’s were a family tradition – starting with my nan, then later bringing my dad and his brother, and then at last, me. My uncle’s garden was a nature lover’s paradise. I’d been told hundreds of stories about it. He had a pond with water voles plopping into it and grass snakes sunbathing on its banks, so I was excited when it was my turn to explore.

  The first day of our summer holiday was over so quickly, and we sat in the garden absorbing the atmosphere and watching the sky gradually turn red while we tucked into fish and chips. It was well deserved after a day of garden adventures, but I was too full of that fresh ai
r and excitement to eat much. At home I’d take leftovers with me on my evening walk, as a late snack for the badgers or foxes I hoped to watch or film overnight with my trail camera. The pungent smell is perfect to attract any nocturnal or shy creatures lurking locally and I knew that nature wouldn’t be sleeping in my uncle’s garden after sunset.

  I had examined every minor detail of this patch during the day, but didn’t find any tell-tale signs of what creatures might be there. No corridors cutting low in the hedge, no badger latrine, no nostril blowing scents of a fox, not even footprints in the wet mud. I became all the more eager to learn what would happen when lights were out and the garden resumed its usual silence.

  I wasn’t the only one who was up before sunrise, impatient to see what had been captured during the night on the trail camera. As I loaded the video clips on to my laptop my uncle peered over my shoulder, amazed by the use of technology and thrilled by the three elegant animals that had come to finish off our tea. Two young and their mother. The adult vixen trotted along the far view of the camera frame with her nose buried in the grass, sniffing but taking nothing. Looking straight up to the camera for a split second, her eyes glowed. She was slim but healthy, a lean shape typical of a rural fox. Staying back, almost out of frame, she concluded that the area was safe. She then called to where she’d emerged, and immediately her two young burst in and ran straight for the scattered feast.

  Foxes are mostly, though not exclusively, nocturnal and are shy; these rural creatures were more timid than their city cousins might be. An opportunity of food like this is also rare for them, although judging by the way the two cubs were scrambling over each other they certainly enjoyed it. Both of them took overly generous mouthfuls, as though they hadn’t eaten for days. They stuffed down as much as they could, taking little notice of each other or their surroundings, so it was a good job mum was on the look out.

  Before long most of the food had been eaten and a fight broke out, heads clashing as they wrestled for the remnants. Using his back legs the larger sibling pushed the other out of the way, spreading his legs over the other’s back and trapping him. His brother tried to escape by shaking vigorously and squealing, his bushy tail going round in circles. Eventually the mother vixen intervened and split up a squabble that was also a fight for the best feed – vital for their future.

  Before it was all gone the mother pushed the cubs out of the way, who sat and watched while she took her share, one of them gently grooming her. Throughout, the vixen remained on high alert, at one point gazing alertly into the distance before continuing to eat. The cubs were only about four to five months old but we could see how they were developing into independence within their environment. As one of the cubs wandered off we noticed that it had a limp – not ideal when living in the wild as there’s no time for resting.

  They all had delightful personalities, though. My uncle, leaning over my shoulder to watch the video clips, was clearly fascinated. Then he said, ‘They used to take the chickens from the orchard when your nan was younger.’

  Georgia Locock, 2016

  Poised in the middle of the water, the mother mallard gave away his presence, and I instantly understood her panic when a brief eel-line of darkness broke the surface. Like her, I thought the otter was trying to seize her one surviving duckling, and I realised as she thrashed down the dyke that she was attempting to lure him away.

  The otter surfaced twice, its broad head sitting squat upon the waterline, and then all went quiet. I followed gingerly along the dyke edge and within seconds there it was: a dark shape feeding lengthwise along the bank. At just five metres away I could hear every crunch of bone and the soft chafing sound of those long white teeth working the flesh. There was an open-mouthed relish to the way he gulped down his evening meal, but it was not a duckling, as I’d anticipated; it was a fresh pike. In the time it took to reach the spot, he’d caught the fish and eaten most of the body. He toyed briefly with the final morsel, but fish heads were not to his magisterial taste and, casting me a quick glance as he slipped back into the water, he continued fishing in an unhurried departure.

  I never saw more than the head again. But the effect of his passage was as if electricity had been run down the length of the dyke and a shock administered to the whole stretch. The stems of reedmace shuddered with his subaquatic probing and the zigzagging lines of bubbles seemed to solidify on their journey upwards, breaking the surface like fragments of ice.

  When the water resumed its customary stillness I went round to inspect the pike and the glass-splinter teeth inside its empty head. I didn’t so much walk home. I seemed to float across the marsh by moonlight, and when I finally went to hang up my coat there was just the faintest trace of fishiness on my fingertips.

  14 July 2008

  Mark Cocker, Claxton: Field Notes from a Small Planet, 2014

  Nature Trail

  At the bottom of my garden

  There’s a hedgehog and a frog

  And a lot of creepy-crawlies

  Living underneath a log,

  There’s a baby daddy long legs

  And an easy-going snail

  And a family of woodlice,

  All are on my nature trail.

  There are caterpillars waiting

  For their time to come to fly,

  There are worms turning the earth over

  As ladybirds fly by,

  Birds will visit, cats will visit

  But they always chose their time

  And I’ve even seen a fox visit

  This wild garden of mine.

  Squirrels come to nick my nuts

  And busy bees come buzzing

  And when the night time comes

  Sometimes some dragonflies come humming,

  My garden mice are very shy

  And I’ve seen bats that growl

  And in my garden I have seen

  A very wise old owl.

  My garden is a lively place

  There’s always something happening,

  There’s this constant search for food

  And then there’s all that flowering,

  When you have a garden

  You will never be alone

  And I believe we all deserve

  A garden of our own.

  Benjamin Zephaniah, 2001

  One of my favourite summer adventures began when I heard that a bird I’d read so much about, in books and on the internet, had been seen near Cumbria. For a young bird lover living in North Yorkshire, this was the most amazing news. And this lovely bird? The fantastic European bee-eater.

  So why am I so passionate about these birds? Because they’re so colourful, bright and vibrant – yellows, blues, even reds. I love kingfishers too, but these are even more spectacular. As they dart through the air you see their beautiful colours as they catch insects with ease. They hardly ever nest in England; Cumbria is the furthest north they have been known to breed. I just had to go and see if I would be lucky enough to see one.

  My dad drove me up there. It took two hours but we went through some incredible countryside on the way. We go to Cumbria regularly throughout the year but this was an area of northern Cumbria we didn’t really know, so it gave us the chance to follow a different route. We had visited High Force before, but after that it was uncharted territory. I’d never been any further into Upper Teesdale but wow – it was an amazing experience. The hills were beautifully green in most places, and the farm houses dotted around were all painted white. It occurred to me how lovely these hills would be with a ‘light dusting of icing’. Snowy caps would look stunning with the luscious green of the grass, and the waterfalls trickling down the sides of the mossy cliff faces. It was utterly beautiful just looking across the valley to the other hills. The road was exciting too, twisting and turning on the hillsides, opening up the full beauty of the countryside. As it was a warm day we had the windows down and you could hear the streams tumbling down the hillsides and smell the hay which had just been cut – it’s
remarkable how that smell triggers memories of places visited during the summer months. The next time I smell it I’m sure I’ll think of this journey.

  When we arrived at the village near where the bee-eaters had been seen we got a little confused as there was an RSPB Reserve about a mile away, but we eventually found our way to the bee-eater station, where quite a few people had already gathered. We went through the gates to the quarry and parked up to start the walk to where they were nesting. This was great on its own. As it was summer, everywhere was alive with insects. You could hear the trilling of grasshoppers, dragonflies darted around the edges of pools, and hoverflies and bees covered the wild flowers by the side of the path. Then way up above was the mewing of buzzards. It was a magical experience in every way.

  After a bit of a walk we managed to get to their base where a little shelter had been set up at the place where you could best see them. After looking for a while, and with a little help from the volunteers there, I managed to find one with a telescope. When I first saw the bee-eaters through the telescope, they looked even more astonishing than they had when I had seen them in the books. I was so excited when I saw them; it was one of the most amazing moments of my life. They didn’t even make any sounds which made them even more enchanting; their stunningly bright colours were the only advertisement they needed. They are spectacular: bright blues, yellows and reds. It’s as if someone took the colours of kingfishers, yellowhammers and robins and put them all together.

  I couldn’t believe I’d seen them. I was absolutely over the moon – and it hadn’t taken long at all. I felt such a huge sense of achievement – such a buzz. And when I started to photograph them it got even better. There weren’t just bee-eaters there – I managed to get a shot of a great-spotted woodpecker, a wren and a bee-eater all in the same photo!