We follow the path through the trees, stepping through an archway of blackthorn onto the top corner of the bank. Even the children pause for a moment, stopped in their tracks by the spectacular view. We are spectators on the top step of an overgrown amphitheatre, waiting for the performance to begin. Ancient woodland stands guard along the top of the slope and the hills seem to roll all around us. A sleepy village nestles amongst the trees in the valley below, only visible by its chimney pots and twelfth-century church tower. Red kites soar through the sky, ever watchful, while green woodpeckers call their laughing yaffle from the nearby woods.
As if nature is working her way through the rainbow, the pale yellow primroses in spring have been replaced by the pink common spotted orchids and delicate blue harebells of summer. But by the beginning of September the colour purple is most definitely the star of the show, with the majestic Chiltern gentians sparkling along the warm chalk slope. As we wander through this amazing herb garden it soon becomes clear that we’re far from alone and the site is alive with all manner of insects. The smoky wings of chalkhill blue butterflies drift past and a speckled wood sunbathes ahead of us in the middle of the path, taking flight as we approach, just to settle in the same spot once we’re gone. A hornet buzzes past, making us stand to attention and keep a respectful distance. The children are fascinated by the sight of a tiny crab spider lurking in a flower head, ready to pounce on any unsuspecting prey. They’re amazed that she can change colour to blend into her surroundings; a chameleon in our midst. Crickets and grasshoppers chirp and whirr all around us, each species producing its individual song. The children are looking and listening for one in particular though, the great green bush-cricket, a prehistoric-looking creature with huge, exaggerated features and a song like a sewing machine. It’s a highlight of any visit, especially if they can find one obliging enough to sit on a hand for a moment before taking flight. I catch sight of a flash of electric blue out of the corner of my eye and I’m lucky enough to see one of our most stunning, but also most rare butterflies, the Adonis blue.
Before we realise it, we’ve meandered our way across to the far side of the bank, but there is still one more treat before we leave. Heading into the woods, we follow a path until the trees open out to reveal a hidden glade known as the ‘hole in the woods’. The pincushion blooms of devil’s-bit scabious sway in the breeze on their slender stems, covering the glade in a rippling, purple sea. The flowers are clearly a much loved source of nectar and each one seems to play host to a bee or butterfly. The children are enchanted by the legend that the devil was so angry about the medicinal properties of this plant that he tried to get rid of it by biting off the roots, leaving the plant with short, stubby roots and the name devil’s-bit scabious. It’s a wonderful finale to our walk around this remarkable place.
Sue Croxford, 2016
Flies, and various sorts of volatile insects, become more troublesome, and sting and bite more than usual before, as well as in the intervals of rainy weather, particularly in autumn, when they are very numerous, and often become great nuisance. This observation applies to several sorts of flies. The horseflies likewise of all sorts are more troublesome before the fall of rain, and particularly when the weather is warm.
Thomas Furly Forster, The Pocket Encyclopaedia of Natural Phenomena, published 1827
It was macabre from a distance; a pure white, human-sized skull glowing out from the darkness of the woodland glade. My son whooped with delight and charged up to the perfect sphere, raising it above his head like a trophy. Out in the sunlight, we inhaled its sweet fungus scent. It was a giant puffball mushroom, the size of a football. It was no longer sinister; it was less like a murder victim’s skull and more like a snowman’s head, cool and heavy in our hands.
Since having children, I have lost my mushroom foraging confidence. Poisoning myself would be rather inconvenient (especially for those around me), but to make the children ill or worse through mistaken mushroom identity would be devastating and unforgivable.
The giant puffball is my safe foraging mushroom because for me it is so easily and reliably recognisable. With a young specimen, bigger than a grapefruit and perfectly white throughout, I can be utterly sure of what it is. They can grow even larger than your head, although the orb becomes lumpen and yellowed, like a whale’s brain imagined. To find out if it is OK to eat, you need to slice it in half. If the flesh inside has lost its solid white, fresh-driven-snow-like appearance and turned beige or yellow, then it won’t taste good. Luckily, it will still be ideal for a messy game of fungi football.
I’ve never managed to find a puffball on purpose. The best plan is to go blackberry picking and keep your eyes open for strange white objects in grassland or deciduous woodland edges. However, they do often regrow at the same spot each year, so if you get lucky one year, it pays to return the following autumn. Indeed, it is something of a miracle that we aren’t surrounded by puffballs, because inside a large, mature puffball, when it has turned brown and dry, there can be more than a trillion spores.
We returned home with our heavy bounty. It was big enough to provide several meals. First, simply fried with garlic and butter and served on toast, the texture somewhere between firm tofu and a savoury marshmallow. The next day it was cut into discs for puffball pizza. Each disc was sprinkled with olive oil and grilled on each side until soft, then topped with tomato sauce and cheese and returned to the grill until golden and bubbly. Pudding was blackberry muffins, still warm from the oven.
Our foraged food, found and shared as a family, roots us into our environment more deeply than ever.
Kate Blincoe, 2016
Threshing Morning
On an apple-ripe September morning
Through the mist-chill fields I went
With a pitchfork on my shoulder
Less for use than for devilment.
The threshing mill was set-up, I knew,
In Cassidy’s haggard last night,
And we owed them a day at the threshing
Since last year. O it was delight
To be paying bills of laughter
And chaffy gossip in kind
With work thrown in to ballast
The fantasy-soaring mind.
As I crossed the wooden bridge I wondered
As I looked into the drain
If ever a summer morning should find me
Shovelling up eels again.
And I thought of the wasps’ nest in the bank
And how I got chased one day
Leaving the drag and the scraw-knife behind,
How I covered my face with hay.
The wet leaves of the cocksfoot
Polished my boots as I
Went round by the glistening bog-holes
Lost in unthinking joy.
I’ll be carrying bags today, I mused,
The best job at the mill
With plenty of time to talk of our loves
As we wait for the bags to fill . . .
Maybe Mary might call round . . .
And then I came to the haggard gate,
And I knew as I entered that I had come
Through fields that were part of no earthly estate.
Patrick Kavanagh, 1943
Swallows are gathering on the telegraph wires, and it’s clear that summer is coming to an end. Everywhere, our native wildlife is preparing to hunker down for the colder months ahead – and hedgerows play a crucial role for many creatures. Hazel dormice breed late in the summer specifically to take advantage of the natural bounty, their tiny young tucked up in nests of beautifully woven strips of honeysuckle bark. Wood mice stock their leaf-lined larders with nuts and elderberries, and I’ve watched badgers snuffling under crab apple trees in search of windfalls. Comma and Red Admiral butterflies bask in the last warmth of the summer sun and join lazy wasps in getting drunk on fermenting fruit juices as the berries begin to decay. In the field margins, goldfinches balance delicately on slender-stemmed groundsel, spiky th
istles and tall, prickly teasels, winkling out the seeds with their sensitive beaks.
October is usually well underway when the whole hedgerow begins to change into winter hues. The glossy red and purple fruits and berries are not the only splash of colour in the hedge at this time of year. Bramble leaves are often the first to show a tinge of scarlet despite many often still flowering, with promise of more fruit in the coming weeks. By comparison, some trees and bushes seem to fade to brown without displaying any fiery tints, but the field maples rarely disappoint and ash trees laden with keys, which rustle in the breeze, turn a wonderful shade of yellow. It won’t be long until the leaves are gone altogether, and the bare branches await their new green foliage in spring.
As November beckons, the days turn colder and the first frosts glitter in the ever paler morning sunlight, highlighting every strand of spider’s silk hung from the brittle stalks of hogweed. Sloes are reaching their prime, the icy mornings sweetening them. There are fewer insects around now. Ladybirds, lacewings and peacock butterflies have sought out the shelter of our homes and garden sheds to wait out the winter, but a few lingering hornets are making the most of any remaining fruit they can find. It’s on days like this that the first winter migrants arrive, and we hear the unmistakeable cackling call of fieldfares and the peep of migrating redwings at night. Together with our native blackbirds and thrushes they flock to the laden hawthorn bushes, methodically stripping them of berries.
As the seasons progress, the needs of different species change. In autumn, the shrubs and trees making up the hedgerow have matured and their fruits bear seeds of future generations. For them, autumn is a season of productivity. But for the species that feed on them, autumn is a season of necessity. They need to eat plentifully while the food is available, to put on weight before the cold of winter takes hold. Without the vital resources that the hedgerow provides, many species would struggle as the days grow shorter and our British countryside would be an altogether less colourful place.
Alice Hunter, 2016
September
Sept. 16.
Dr Chandler’s Bantam sow brought him this last summer a large litter of pigs, several of which were not cloven-footed, but had their toes joined together. For tho’ on the upper part of the foot there was somewhat of a suture, or division; yet below in the soles the toes were perfectly united; & on some of the hind legs there was a solid hoof like that of a colt. The feet of the sow are completely cloven. Mr Ray in his Synopsis animalium quadrupedum takes no notice of this singular variety; but Linnaeus in his Systema Naturae says, ‘Varietas frequens Upsaliae Suis domestici simper monunguli: in ceteris eadem species.’
Sept. 17.
Gathered-in the white pippins, about a bushel: many were blown down last week. Oats housed.
Sept. 19.
Rain. Hops become very brown, & damaged. The hop-pickers are wet through every day.
Sept. 21.
On this day Monarchy was abolished at Paris by the National Convention; & France became a Republic!
Sept. 22.
As I have questioned men that frequent coppices respecting Fern-owls, which they have not seen or heard of late; there is reason to suspect that they have withdrawn themselves, as well as the fly-catchers, & black-caps, about the beginning of this month. Where timber lies felled among the bushes, & covert, wood-men tell me, that fern-owls love to sit upon the logs of an evening: but what their motive is does not appear.
Sept. 23.
My Bantam chickens, which have been kept in the scullery every night till now for fear of the rats, that carried away the first brood from the brew-house, went up last week to the beam over the stable. The earnest & early propensity of the Gallinae to roost on high is very observable; & discovers a strong dread impressed on their spirits respecting vermin that may annoy them on the ground during the hours of darkness. Hence poultry, if left to themselves & not housed, will perch, the winter through on yew-trees & fir-trees; & turkies & Guinea-fowls, heavy as they are, get up into apple trees; pheasants also in woods sleep on trees to avoid foxes:– while pea-fowls climb to the tops of the highest trees round their owner’s house for security, let the weather be ever so cold or blowing. Partridges, it is true, roost on the ground, not having the faculty of perching; but then the same fear prevails in their minds; for through apprehensions from pole-cats, weasels, & stoats, they never trust themselves to coverts; but nestle together in the midst of large fields, far removed from hedges & coppices, which they love to haunt/frequent in the day; & where at that season they can skulk more secure from the ravages of rapacious birds. As to ducks, & geese, their aukward splay webfeet forbid them to settle on trees: they therefore, in the hours of darkness & danger, betake themselves to their own element the water, where amidst large lakes & pools, like ships riding at anchor, they float the whole night long in peace, & security.
Sept. 25.
Men begin to bag hops. Celeri comes in. Vine-leaves turn purple.
Sept. 30.
There is a remarkable hill on the downs near Lewes in Sussex, known by the name of Mount Carburn [Caburn], which over-looks that town, & affords a most engaging prospect of all the country round, besides several views of the sea. On the very summit of this exalted promontory, & amidst the trenches of its Danish [British] camp, there haunts a species of wild Bee, making its nest in the chalky soil. When people approach the place, these insects begin to be alarmed, & with a sharp & hostile sound dash, & strike round the heads & faces of intruders. I have often been interrupted myself while contemplating the grandeur of the scenery around me, & have thought myself in danger of being stung:– and have heard my Brother Benjamin say, that he & his daughter Rebecca were driven from the spot by the fierce menaces of these angry insects.
Reverend Gilbert White, The Naturalist’s Journal, 1792
Dusk, when the edges of all things blur. A time of mauve and moonlight, of shapeshiftings and stirrings, of magic. It’s my favourite time of day.
Nocturnal wildlife has a special fascination; it usually lives out of sight beneath the radar of our everyday, human lives. We pull on our fleeces, let the camp-fire die down and steal into the woods. I hear the moan of the pump house and the faint laughter of children in the camping field. We make our way quietly down the woodland path, old beechmast crunching underfoot, midges fussing about our faces. The moon rises up in the east, spilling light over a few steely clouds. The sky deepens to a twilight blue. It is balmy and a gentle breeze lifts the black lacy hands of the canopy in a silent dance. Below us the woodland floor falls away in a confusion of ferns, red campion, bramble and ivy. Somewhere down below is the badger sett we discovered earlier in the day, inconspicuous unless you are close by. The smooth hummocks, discarded bedding and well-worn paths meandering off through the trees are tell-tale signs. It’s intriguing to think that a badger family might be slumbering beneath our feet.
We wait. The ground is damp; it has rained in the last few days and the badgers will be out foraging for earthworms. They emerge earlier in the evenings in autumn for food and bedding. We listen. I crouch in the spiky twigs of a hawthorn bush in a pocket of darkness, fingers in the earth to steady myself. The close smell of earth and leaf litter. My partner stands motionless a few metres away, back against a beech. We wait and listen, wait and listen. Anticipation. Darkness creeps into all spaces, rich animal darkness wraps around us.
Japanese folklore has it that badgers can shapeshift into humans and sing songs. Or they may change themselves into trees, stones, comets, drum on their bellies as pranksters, lure unsuspecting observers into ditches and swamps. This evening we have been lured into the woods at dusk by our own curiosity.
The shadows rustle. The sound becomes a movement in the corner of my eye. Do my ears and eyes deceive me? There is a movement to my left along the path I am sure. I dare to turn my head but fear my clothes will rustle. I can just make out my partner, who has turned towards me. He is mouthing something; he too has sensed a movement, a badg
er close by.
A little piece of grey-garbed night is trundling towards us, quite unaware of our presence. It is a little unsettling to think he could run into me on this path. He – I call it he for convenience – snuffles the earth, hesitates but seems unbothered; badgers rule these woods. And he is so, so quiet. Now I can see the white stripes on his face, his open gaze, as curious as I am. There is something humorous, almost comical about him. He bows and lifts his head, sniffing the air; badgers have reasonable night vision but a great sense of smell. He seems unfazed and comes closer. So close is he now that I could reach out and touch him from my place in the shadows.
I stay as still as I can in the hawthorn. It is thrilling to be so close to a wild animal, to be in their space.
The badger is just one foot away now and I am tense and trying not to shake. The moment is long; I know I will need to move soon. I make a slight noise and give myself away. The badger stands stock still for a second and then, with a blur of grey, he hurries off into the night. I sigh, but I’m smiling. Smiling to myself in the darkness.
Autumn Page 3