Autumn Read online

  Alexi Francis, 2016

  On the Harvest Moon and the Hunter’s Moon. The nearest Moon to the autumnal equinox is called the Harvest Moon: it rises nearer to the same each succeeding night at this time of year than it does at any other: it has received its cognomen in autumn only, on account probably of its use to the farmers, when pressed for time with the ingathering of the harvest. The cause of this phenomenon is the Moon’s being in the signs and at the time of the full, in which she is during this and the succeeding month. The October Moon is called the Hunter’s Moon. It is well known that the signs and rise making the smallest, and and rise making the greatest angle with the horizon; and vice versa with respect to setting. Now the Moon, whose orbit is nearly parallel to the ecliptic, is the full in and in September and October, consequently, rising in those months, she makes the least angle with the horizon, and therefore rises nearer to the same time every evening.

  Thomas Furly Forster, The Pocket Encyclopaedia of Natural Phenomena, published 1827

  For an ecologist, fieldwork is a pleasure. In autumn it is a bittersweet pleasure. The day itself will be a quiet joy like other field days, but the weakening sun, lengthening shadows and changing colours remind us that such pleasures will soon be curtailed, until spring, when buds will start bursting forth once more.

  It was in search of such bittersweet pleasure that, some years ago, I set out with a colleague, Victoria, on a research trip to survey some lime trees. We were studying two British species of limes that grow in close proximity in the same wood, trying to understand how separate they were. Did they co-exist as two distinct species, small-leaved lime and large-leaved lime? Or did they take advantage of this proximity, of overlapping flowering times and shared pollinators, to cross-fertilise and merge into one?

  A line of isolated magical woods, roughly situated on the English–Welsh border from Shropshire down to the lower reaches of the Wye Valley, is where this question is best answered and hence our destination. On this day we were in Worcestershire. Bordered by hills to the east and west, split by two of the great English rivers, the Severn and the Avon, and retaining a mixture of grassland, arable fields, orchards and woodland, it is perhaps the quintessential English lowland county. Its patchwork would still be recognised by Piers Plowman as the one he viewed from the Malverns in the fourteenth century. Travelling through the narrow lanes, autumn had clearly begun to show its hand. Late morning and there was still dew on the vegetation, while in the hedgerows green was beginning to retreat from the leaves.

  The Knapp and Papermill Nature Reserve is a microcosm of the county. It is entered via a narrow path that ascends up a short rise to reveal an old orchard, where burnished apples are starting to fall from the boughs. This gives way to grassland, untouched by the intrusion of late twentieth-century agriculture, although the season was leaving its mark. The straw-coloured grass dropped its seed as we walked through it to admire more closely the purple-red of the knapweed flowers. To the left is a narrow stream. To the right is a steep slope, bearing a wood that is a relic of the virtually continuous verdant cover that once sprawled over the land. It is this wood, or rather its limes and their sexuality, that we had come to study.

  The English have a confused relationship with woodlands. Plans to limit public access or to grub out parts of them for development are seen as an outrage, evoking strong resistance. At the same time, we see them as sources of danger; from childhood we are warned of them, through fairy stories, as places where people are easily lost or abducted. Nature resides there, but a nature that is wild and sometimes life-threatening.

  Individual trees also elicit a strong emotional response, and limes are among the most beloved. When I first started to study them, I thought this was a product of their rarity. They are invariably found in special, secretive places; a relic of pre-human Britain, when such trees covered most of the land. Thus to find limes is to briefly glimpse the world as it appeared to our ancestors.

  This cannot be the full story, however. Lime-lovers abound even without this historical ecological perspective. Perhaps it is the trees themselves: typically immense structures with dense canopies of abundant foliage, supported by huge, stout trunks, that in turn rely upon rock-grasping roots. These trees continue to exist as they have done for centuries, roots and leaves miraculously extracting the chemicals for life; they have broken time’s arrow and to encounter them is to gain a brief glimpse of immortality.

  Perhaps our affection is an echo of the folklore that surrounds them. Across various parts of Europe the tree represents justice, health, fertility and romance. In Germany, the romantic association inspired the famous medieval poem Unter der Linden by Walter von der Vogelweide, which tells of the secret tryst between a knight and a peasant girl. Perhaps that connection lies in the shape of the leaves themselves – photosynthetic hearts suspended overhead.

  It is these hearts we had come to collect, to extract DNA and thus determine the relationship between the trees. We also mapped their locations, measure trunk size and growth form to help form a fuller picture. A picture of past unions and tangled relationships. We carefully paced out our survey area. The steep rocky slope made movement through the wood difficult, but once we found our targets we fell to work quickly. Although we had never been in the field together previously, we fell into an easy rhythm. Taking each tree in turn, we swiftly, almost wordlessly took on our roles. Find the tree, number it, slip the tape around it, measure, record, take a trowel full of soil, place in bag, seal, label, match the leaves to the trunk, collect, place in bag, seal, breathe deeply and move on to the next one.

  We continued to work in this way, slipping through the wood and gradually losing sense of time or, indeed, of anything beyond the trees themselves, until we had a full set of samples. Collecting done, we sat and rested under one of our trees. A couple of cast-off leaves spiralled down in front of us and the day slowly came back into focus.

  Paul Ashton, 2016

  To come to Chilworth, which lies on the south side of St. Martha’s Hill, most people would have gone along the level road to Guildford, and come round through Shawford under the hills; but we, having seen enough of streets and turnpikes, took across over Merrow Down, where the Guildford race-course is, and then mounted the ‘Surrey Hills,’ so famous for the prospects they afford. Here we looked back over Middlesex, and into Buckinghamshire and Berkshire, away towards the north-west, into Essex and Kent towards the east, over part of Sussex to the south, and over part of Hampshire to the west and south-west. We are here upon a bed of chalk, where the downs always afford good sheep food. We steered for St. Martha’s Chapel, and went round at the foot of the lofty hill on which it stands. This brought us down the side of a steep hill, and along a bridle-way, into the narrow and exquisitely beautiful vale of Chilworth, where we were to stop for the night. This vale is skirted partly by woodlands and partly by sides of hills tilled as corn fields. The land is excellent, particularly towards the bottom. Even the arable fields are in some places, towards their tops, nearly as steep as the roof of a tiled house; and where the ground is covered with woods the ground is still more steep. Down the middle of the vale there is a series of ponds, or small lakes, which meet your eye, here and there, through the trees. Here are some very fine farms, a little strip of meadows, some hop-gardens, and the lakes have given rise to the establishment of powder-mills and paper-mills. The trees of all sorts grow well here; and coppices yield poles for the hop-gardens and wood to make charcoal for the powder-mills.

  They are sowing wheat here, and the land, owing to the fine summer that we have had, is in a very fine state. The rain, too, which, yesterday, fell here in great abundance, has been just in time to make a really good wheat-sowing season. The turnips all the way that we have come, are good. Rather backward in some places; but in sufficient quantity upon the ground, and there is yet a good while for them to grow. All the fall fruit is excellent, and in great abundance. The grapes are as good as those raised under glass. The apples are
much richer than in ordinary years. The crop of hops has been very fine here, as well as everywhere else. The crop is not only large, but good in quality. They expect to get six pounds a hundred for them at Weyhill Fair. That is one more than I think they will get.

  September 1822

  William Cobbett, Rural Rides, 1830

  It is just before dawn on a misty autumnal morning and the air is slightly chilled. My local wetland, Barton Fields in Abingdon, becomes unfamiliar, ethereal, and breathtakingly beautiful. The dawn chorus ceased in July, but the melancholic sweetness of a robin’s song suddenly fills the morning air, and my heart, as I continue on the grassy path.

  The sky turns a soft pink as the sun begins to rise through the mist. As I pass a bramble on the opposite side of a stream, close to the Thames, a movement catches my eye. I assume it is a moorhen, as I have seen them climbing brambles above other streams. But this bird is brown and grey with a long reddish beak. A water rail! I wonder if an otter has spooked it? Otters will take these birds. I find distinctive, five-toed otter footprints in a damp muddy patch, but the owner remains elusive.

  The following day it is warm and sunny as I head out mid-morning to walk through Abbey Fishponds. As I approach a bramble bush laden with ripe blackberries, I slow down and walk silently. I had noted the head of a small mammal fleeing into the depths of this bush as I returned home on the previous day. During that fleeting moment it looked like a bank vole, rather than a wood mouse with its upright ears. Now I wait silently and motionlessly for about twenty minutes. At last, much to my delight, a bank vole emerges out of the depths of the brambles into the sunlight almost in front of me. I stand, enchanted by this wild, charismatic character. Such a special, Beatrix Potter moment. What a privilege!

  The bank vole deftly avoids the thorns to sit in the bramble by its chosen blackberry. It does not bite through the stem, as I have seen water voles do, and then rush off with it. A blackberry is rather a large feast for this mouse-sized mammal. It clasps the blackberry in its small hands and begins eating its clustered drupelets with relish, its dark, appealing eyes shining. Then it cleans its teeth with deft paws and eats a leaf before disappearing swiftly into the depths of the bramble once more.

  Bank voles do not hibernate and are active during the day and night. They become nocturnal in the summer months, so the best chance of seeing one is in the autumn. This is because their numbers plummet in the winter to a low during April when the breeding season begins. Breeding continues until October.

  Tawny owls live nearby and rely on small mammals as part of their diet for their own survival. This bramble bush was not only supplying bank voles and birds with autumnal food. It was there, one early autumn morning, that I saw a young tawny owl sitting on a branch close to the trunk of a bleached, dead tree above the reed-bed. The reeds surrounded the tree, almost reaching the branch the owl was sitting on. It was surprisingly well camouflaged among the light brown, feather-like common reed heads on their sun-dried stems. The owlet had left its nest because its parents were no longer feeding it. It sat in the tree, looking as if it was not quite certain what to do next. I left, concerned about disturbing it, and when I returned a couple of hours later to check that it was OK, was heartened to find that it had flown to find a new home.

  I love this season of gradual withdrawal. It is not only a visible withdrawal by nature, but a subtle inner withdrawal, too; a slow, imperceptible retreat into ourselves. A season of rest and quietness as the days shorten. A chance to recharge the soul after a spring and summer of almost constant activity.

  Jo Cartmell, 2016

  Ode to the West Wind

  I

  O wild West Wind, thou breath of Autumn’s being,

  Thou from whose unseen presence the leaves dead

  Are driven like ghosts from an enchanter fleeing,

  Yellow, and black, and pale, and hectic red,

  Pestilence-stricken multitudes! O thou

  Who chariotest to their dark wintry bed

  The winged seeds, where they lie cold and low,

  Each like a corpse within its grave, until

  Thine azure sister of the Spring shall blow

  Her clarion o’er the dreaming earth, and fill

  (Driving sweet buds like flocks to feed in air)

  With living hues and odours plain and hill;

  Wild Spirit, which art moving everywhere;

  Destroyer and preserver; hear, O hear!

  II

  Thou on whose stream, ’mid the steep sky’s commotion,

  Loose clouds like earth’s decaying leaves are shed,

  Shook from the tangled boughs of heaven and ocean,

  Angels of rain and lightning! there are spread

  On the blue surface of thine airy surge,

  Like the bright hair uplifted from the head

  Of some fierce Mænad, even from the dim verge

  Of the horizon to the zenith’s height,

  The locks of the approaching storm. Thou dirge

  Of the dying year, to which this closing night

  Will be the dome of a vast sepulchre,

  Vaulted with all thy congregated might

  Of vapours, from whose solid atmosphere

  Black rain, and fire, and hail will burst: O hear!

  III

  Thou who didst waken from his summer dreams

  The blue Mediterranean, where he lay,

  Lull’d by the coil of his crystalline streams,

  Beside a pumice isle in Baiæ’s bay,

  And saw in sleep old palaces and towers

  Quivering within the wave’s intenser day,

  All overgrown with azure moss and flowers

  So sweet, the sense faints picturing them! Thou

  For whose path the Atlantic’s level powers

  Cleave themselves into chasms, while far below

  The sea-blooms and the oozy woods which wear

  The sapless foliage of the ocean, know

  Thy voice, and suddenly grow gray with fear,

  And tremble and despoil themselves: O hear!

  IV

  If I were a dead leaf thou mightest bear;

  If I were a swift cloud to fly with thee;

  A wave to pant beneath thy power, and share

  The impulse of thy strength, only less free

  Than thou, O uncontrollable! if even

  I were as in my boyhood, and could be

  The comrade of thy wanderings over heaven,

  As then, when to outstrip thy skiey speed

  Scarce seem’d a vision – I would ne’er have striven

  As thus with thee in prayer in my sore need.

  O! lift me as a wave, a leaf, a cloud!

  I fall upon the thorns of life! I bleed!

  A heavy weight of hours has chain’d and bow’d

  One too like thee – tameless, and swift, and proud.

  V

  Make me thy lyre, even as the forest is:

  What if my leaves are falling like its own?

  The tumult of thy mighty harmonies

  Will take from both a deep, autumnal tone,

  Sweet though in sadness. Be thou, Spirit fierce,

  My spirit! Be thou me, impetuous one!

  Drive my dead thoughts over the universe,

  Like wither’d leaves to quicken a new birth;

  And, by the incantation of this verse,

  Scatter, as from an unextinguish’d hearth

  Ashes and sparks, my words among mankind!

  Be through my lips to unawaken’d earth

  The trumpet of a prophecy! O Wind,

  If Winter comes, can Spring be far behind?

  Percy Bysshe Shelley, 1820

  Late September in Berlin and I’m a long way from the sea. I’m in bed reading about the local winds of Europe: the mistral, which blows north-westerly from southern France into the Mediterranean; the föhn, blowing warmly off the north side of the Alps. Then I find myself looking at weather forecasting websites back home
in the UK. The surfer’s site Magic Seaweed shows clever graphics of approaching winds and sea swells. The Orkney Harbours site gives readings taken from anemometers around the islands, on hilltops and piers. Sanday Weather provides detailed information about a single location on a small isle. I’m living far away but I keep coming back to these places, carried on the tides of the internet.

  In the Orkney Islands at the north of Scotland, where there are very few trees, autumn is not much of a season. Summer quickly changes into the long winter, which blows in with the September equinox. Two years previously, I was home in Orkney at this time of year and spent a week challenging myself to swim in the sea every day. The nights before, I looked at the websites and planned where to go depending on the wind direction and height of tide. Because I was on an island, with coastline facing in all directions, I could always find a sheltered spot.

  In the strongest winds, on days when it’s too wild to swim, I try to walk into the gale. In a westerly storm on the island of Papay, I aim for the shoreline but my progress is slowed by sea spray, chunks of foam and grit being blown towards me. My eyes are watering, clothes and face being pulled backwards. The wind fills my ears and stirs my spirits, I feel in high pressure and held tightly. When I give up and turn around, I’m pushed by the wind into a run. I find it exciting but treat the coastline at these times with a healthy respect.

  I download a tides app onto my phone. Here, I am able to see undulating graphs showing the movement between high and low tides at various points along the coast. It shows me their extent in metres, using data based on historical measurements. Inganess Bay is best to go to at low tide, when I can swim out as far as a shipwreck. High tide is better for swimming at Skipi Geo, when the sea comes up inside a cove. How the sea behaves around the islands, where the Atlantic meets the North Sea, is extremely complicated. Gaining this knowledge is a life’s work for fishermen and ferry navigators.