Autumn Read online

  ‘Yes,’ he tells himself. ‘It is mine! All mine.’

  To the ploughboy the meaning of gathering is revealed.

  Clare Leighton, The Farmer’s Year:

  A Calendar of English Husbandry, 1933

  Tithonus

  The woods decay, the woods decay and fall,

  The vapours weep their burthen to the ground,

  Man comes and tills the field and lies beneath,

  And after many a summer dies the swan.

  Me only cruel immortality

  Consumes: I wither slowly in thine arms,

  Here at the quiet limit of the world,

  A white-hair’d shadow roaming like a dream

  The ever-silent spaces of the East,

  Far-folded mists, and gleaming halls of morn.

  Alas! for this gray shadow, once a man –

  So glorious in his beauty and thy choice,

  Who madest him thy chosen, that he seem’d

  To his great heart none other than a God!

  I ask’d thee, ‘Give me immortality.’

  Then didst thou grant mine asking with a smile,

  Like wealthy men, who care not how they give.

  But thy strong Hours indignant work’d their wills,

  And beat me down and marr’d and wasted me,

  And tho’ they could not end me, left me maim’d

  To dwell in presence of immortal youth,

  Immortal age beside immortal youth,

  And all I was, in ashes. Can thy love,

  Thy beauty, make amends, tho’ even now,

  Close over us, the silver star, thy guide,

  Shines in those tremulous eyes that fill with tears

  To hear me? Let me go: take back thy gift:

  Why should a man desire in any way

  To vary from the kindly race of men

  Or pass beyond the goal of ordinance

  Where all should pause, as is most meet for all?

  A soft air fans the cloud apart; there comes

  A glimpse of that dark world where I was born.

  Once more the old mysterious glimmer steals

  From thy pure brows, and from thy shoulders pure,

  And bosom beating with a heart renew’d.

  Thy cheek begins to redden thro’ the gloom,

  Thy sweet eyes brighten slowly close to mine,

  Ere yet they blind the stars, and the wild team

  Which love thee, yearning for thy yoke, arise,

  And shake the darkness from their loosen’d manes,

  And beat the twilight into flakes of fire.

  Lo! ever thus thou growest beautiful

  In silence, then before thine answer given

  Departest, and thy tears are on my cheek.

  Why wilt thou ever scare me with thy tears,

  And make me tremble lest a saying learnt,

  In days far-off, on that dark earth, be true?

  ‘The Gods themselves cannot recall their gifts.’

  Ay me! ay me! with what another heart

  In days far-off, and with what other eyes

  I used to watch – if I be he that watch’d –

  The lucid outline forming round thee; saw

  The dim curls kindle into sunny rings;

  Changed with thy mystic change, and felt my blood

  Glow with the glow that slowly crimson’d all

  Thy presence and thy portals, while I lay,

  Mouth, forehead, eyelids, growing dewy-warm

  With kisses balmier than half-opening buds

  Of April, and could hear the lips that kiss’d

  Whispering I knew not what of wild and sweet,

  Like that strange song I heard Apollo sing,

  While Ilion like a mist rose into towers.

  Yet hold me not for ever in thine East:

  How can my nature longer mix with thine?

  Coldly thy rosy shadows bathe me, cold

  Are all thy lights, and cold my wrinkled feet

  Upon thy glimmering thresholds, when the steam

  Floats up from those dim fields about the homes

  Of happy men that have the power to die,

  And grassy barrows of the happier dead.

  Release me, and restore me to the ground;

  Thou seëst all things, thou wilt see my grave:

  Thou wilt renew thy beauty morn by morn;

  I earth in earth forget these empty courts,

  And thee returning on thy silver wheels.

  Alfred, Lord Tennyson, 1860

  Every day in autumn I am drawn to St John’s Point’s black-and-yellow-striped lighthouse, the tallest in Ireland, to immerse myself in the solitude of nature, to listen out for birds and to look out to sea. Above the rhythm of breaking waves the seven whistles of a whimbrel might be all I hear, or the shrill ‘kleep’ of an oystercatcher. Little else. What peace! I like it most when a strong wind is blowing onshore, preferably from the southeast and accompanied by squalls and poor visibility. On such days I might stay out all day, my black lab Django by my side. The idea of staring through a telescope for an insane number of hours on an exposed headland does not have wide appeal – I’m usually seawatching alone, or with my son, Tim. For us, seawatching is a drug. The worse the weather the better: gale force winds and rain, yes please!

  Few parts of the world can match the British Isles for the richness of seabirds that gather each summer to breed on its bountiful islands and isolated rocks, or pass offshore each autumn, sometimes in spectacular numbers. Of the twenty-five regularly breeding seabirds in Great Britain and Ireland all but two, Leach’s petrel and little tern, regularly pass St John’s Point. Often, all that the casual observer needs is a pair of binoculars to marvel at a constant stream of seabirds of a dozen or so species. Red-throated diver, gannet, kittiwake, razorbill and Manx shearwater are some of the point’s staple species, while black-throated diver, Sabine’s gull and storm petrel can provide the icing on a really good seawatch. Thousands of auks, gulls and terns commute between the open sea and fish-rich shallows of Dundrum Bay, while more pelagic species such as skuas will enter the bay in pursuit of food or temporary respite before resuming their course.

  One bird, above all, is symbolic of the Celtic seas: the magical Manx shearwater. Mesmerising in its flight, alternating black above and white below, the Manx shearwater effortlessly banks from side to side, rising and falling on its long slim wings, masterfully freewheeling through peaks and troughs; sometimes, when travelling between breeding and fishing grounds or on migration, for hundreds of miles at a time. It has no fear of the sea. Coming to land, which the adult birds must do in order to breed, is another thing. With set back legs designed for swimming not walking, shearwaters are easy meat for predatory gulls and their kin. Which is why they only come ashore under the cover of darkness. Some days there are many more Manxies passing St John’s Point than the 10,000 that breed nearby on Lighthouse Island, which is one of the three Copeland isles that lie just outside the mouth of Belfast Lough. So it must be assumed that birds are being drawn from the much bigger colonies to the north and south: Rum in Scotland and Skomer, Skokholm and Middleholm in Wales, which between them account for 80 per cent of the world population of c. 370,000 pairs. The scientific name, Puffinus puffinus, comes from puffin, originally meaning the cured carcass of the nestling shearwater but later, confusingly, also that of the unrelated puffin. The common name originates from the Calf of Man – visible from St John’s Point – where possibly the largest colony of all once existed, though few breed there now.

  Manx shearwaters, like most seabirds, are long-lived. Scientists at Copeland Bird Observatory have been monitoring the colony of Manxies since the observatory’s foundation seventy years ago. One shearwater ringed in the 1950s was more than fifty years old when last observed. Another, caught and ringed on Bardsey Island in 1957 as a breeding adult – so already at least five years old – was subsequently caught on four more occasions, most recently in 2003, confirming it as one
of the oldest recorded birds ever. During their half-century of annual journeys to and from wintering areas off the coast of Brazil and Argentina they are estimated to have flown 5 million miles (8,045,000 km) – more than ten times to the Moon and back.

  Raising a Manx shearwater chick is a lengthy affair, spanning almost four months. For the first two months after hatching one of the parents remains with their single offspring in the burrow while the other goes out to sea, returning after several days with a full crop of partly digested small fish and squid. The chick is literally fattened up over the next few weeks, with both parents bringing food. The young bird then remains alone in its burrow for a further eight to nine days before it embarks on its maiden flight entirely unaccompanied – quite an adventure after having lived underground until then. Manx shearwaters lead exciting lives: after the exhausting business of breeding it appears they like to party, spending the winter in the coastal waters of South America: Copeland to Copacabana! Their return migration, beginning in March, carries them northward across the Equator to the Caribbean, where they pick up the Gulf Stream and head out over the North Atlantic, arriving at their Celtic island sanctuaries from mid-April onward. At St John’s Point Tim and I will be waiting to welcome them home.

  Chris Murphy, 2016

  Fall of the Leaf. The decay and fall of the foliage is a phenomenon which takes place during the autumnal season, beginning with the early trees, as limes, elms, and others about Michaelmas, and continuing till the feast of St. Catherine, Nov. 25th, after which few leaves are left except on the oaks, and some trees which scarcely shed them at all till spring.

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

  There is a sorrow to September, a space left in the sky by the swifts. Plants and grasses, gold with summer’s sun, are tousled now by the first of autumn’s storms. Even September’s songsters speak of sadness. Silent since the spring, the robins start again their tragic trickle of a song, telling of winter’s coming. From the autumn-tangled stands of bramble come the introspective chirps of dark bush-crickets. ‘The crickets felt it was their duty to warn everyone that summertime cannot last forever. Even on the most beautiful days in the whole year – the days when summer is changing into fall – the crickets spread the rumour of sadness and change.’ So wrote E. B. White in Charlotte’s Web.

  Change, though, is a certainty if you live on a planet with a tilted axis in respect to its source of heat and light. After the giddy upswing of May and the fat abundance of July and August must inevitably – so the heavens have it – come the sadness, the sense of loss of September; as leaves curl and yellow, as summer’s migrants wink out one by one, and as the blackberries turn to tasteless pap.

  There’s little point in being human, however, if you can’t embrace a magnificent melancholy. Just as seasons go with a tilted planetary axis, melancholy goes with humanity, and September is its month. On a damp, storm-wracked day – the day on which the leaden sadness of the end of summer grasps your heart – walk a wild beach in North Norfolk. Crunch across the deep line of razorshells, witnesses to the astounding productivity of the Wash, and kick the sullen sand with the toes of your boots. To sea, the Sandwich terns are gathering, froth-white against the hammered pewter of the water. With them is their nemesis, the dark dart of an arctic skua, fresh from the tundra with piracy in its eyes. It chases the hapless terns until, worn out, they drop the fish they’ve caught into its thieving bill. Even the Sandwich terns know September’s sadness.

  Inland the sorrow hangs heavy like an autumn mist. The straggling clematis has flowered and gone to silky seed; the cast of butterflies – spring’s skippers, summer’s blues and hairstreaks – all have flown and died; even the oaks have mildewed in the damp. Yet even as winter’s dark and cold and damp are presaged by the yellowing, dying vegetation all around, you spot a fresh little violet flower on a chalky bank. An autumn gentian, peeking bravely into bloom as all else fades.

  September is a melancholy month, but as Henry David Thoreau wrote, ‘The doctrine of despair was never taught by such as shared the serenity of nature.’ In an autumn gentian’s little flower is another spring foretold.

  Nick Acheson, 2014

  It feels as if it’s been raining for weeks. As I stare out over the garden all I can see is a lake of bouncing water. Only a month ago the freshly hatched and mated queen bumblebees were busy feeding in the meadow and I was lying next to them with the warm buzz of late summer around me. Now I can’t see a single living creature and I hope the bumbles are hibernating deep in the mound of autumn leaves I’ve piled up behind the shed. It’s grey, depressing and wet – autumn has arrived and, to be honest, it’s not living up to its golden reputation.

  As I go to bed I can still hear the rain beating on the window. That’s unusual, as the roof overhang usually stops the rain from touching the glass, but this is rain with attitude, wind-driven horizontal rain, and as I slide under the duvet and close my eyes I try to block out the weather outside. That’s when I notice the scratching.

  At first I try to kid myself that it’s a twig rubbing against the window, but the longer it goes on, the longer my brain seems to tune into its persistent rhythm and I can’t get away from the fact that it’s coming from the attic. As I eventually drift off to sleep, rats the size of small dogs and giant marauding grey squirrels fill my dreams and I’m quite surprised to wake to thin watery sunshine and total silence.

  The next morning I’m unceremoniously nominated to ‘investigate’ the sounds by my husband, and as I climb the ladder and push open the hatch I’m actually a bit disappointed when everything in the attic seems totally normal. I wander around for a while, stub my toe on a suitcase in the dim orange light from the swinging fluorescent tube, and wish I was wearing more than just my dressing gown. Then I spot them: unmistakable tiny black mouse droppings, smaller than a grain of rice, perched precariously on top of the box with ‘Christmas decorations’ scrawled on its side. Sleuthing concludes for the day.

  By the next day I’ve managed to convince myself there’s probably just one mouse who’s probably been flooded out of his garden home. In autumn, as the weather grows cold and wet, it’s not unknown for rural woodmice to take sanctuary in our dry, warm homes. I need to trap and release it – killing isn’t an option in my book. I get on the phone to a friend at a local Wildlife Trust and ask if I can please borrow a few Longworth small mammal traps. I’ve used these before to help survey a local nature reserve for small mammals. They look like little metal tunnels with a bigger box on the end, and the mouse, vole or shrew wanders in (tempted by some tasty morsels and bedding already in the larger box compartment) and as it moves over a small trip mechanism the door to the tunnel falls shut behind it. The mammal is safe, will have plenty of food and will be quite comfortable until I can release it a few hours later – perfect. The Wildlife Trust agree to let me borrow a few.

  That night I set up six traps between the suitcases, boxes and discarded gym equipment in the attic. In the morning four out of six doors are closed. It seems I might have slightly underestimated the extent of the mouse migration. I carefully place the first trap into a deep see-through plastic bag and as I take the trap apart the contents gently wriggle into the bag. I quickly remove the trap, hold the bag shut and lift it to eye level. I come face to face with twitchy-nosed woodmouse number one.

  There’s no getting away from the fact that woodmice are cute. With enormous black eyes and long whiskers it stares back at me through the plastic bag. I’ve decided to release it under the shed, where it should be dry and safe. I hurry down the ladder, down the stairs, out of the back door, down the garden, round the back of the shed and within seconds it’s free and hopping like a tiny brown kangaroo over a couple of twigs before diving for cover. Half an hour later I’ve successfully relocated the other three. Job done.

  That night the scratching from the attic is worse than ever.

  OK. There’s obviously quite a big fam
ily up there. I set all six traps the next night, and four more are closed in the morning. That’s now eight woodmice I’ve trapped. I repeat the release procedure and tell myself that surely that must be it?

  That night I not only hear scratching, but scampering and squeaks too.

  I set all six traps again and the next morning five are shut. We’re now up to unlucky-for-some thirteen and I’m beginning to get worried. The attic must be overrun with woodmice – and yet there’s hardly any sign of them. I can’t quite understand what’s going on, so I take to the internet in the hope of finding some answers.

  Did you know woodmice have amazing homing instincts? I didn’t. After two further days of marking each mouse caught with a dab of animal friendly coloured marker on the back of its neck, and catching the same five marked mice two nights in a row, I realise that a little journey in the car might be necessary if I am ever going to stop these persistent five from returning to the attic. On the third morning I drove the little woodmouse family three miles down the road and released them together into a beautiful ancient wood with plenty of mouse hidey-holes.

  It’s now a week later and I’m lying in bed. It’s perfectly quiet. The scratching, scampering and squeaking has stopped. They haven’t returned . . . yet.

  Jane Adams, 2016

  October

  Oct. 1.

  Wheat out at Buriton, Froxfield, Ropley, & other places.

  Oct. 2.

  Flying ants, male & female, usually swarm, & migrate on hot sunny days in August & September; but this day a vast emigration took place in my garden, & myriads came forth in appearance, from the drain which goes under the fruit-wall; filling the air & the adjoining trees & shrubs with their numbers. The females were full of eggs. This late swarming is probably owing to the backward, wet season. The day following, not one flying ant was to be seen. The males, it is supposed all perish: the females wander away; & such as escape from Hirundines get into the grass, & under stones, & tiles, & lay the foundation of future colonies.