The first day of autumn, according to the calendar and to the Met Office. The dragonflies and faded butterflies will tell you that summer is still hanging on by a thread, but the cobwebs are frosted with dew in the mornings and there’s a cool wind blowing from the north. It takes more than one swallow to make a summer, but how many does it take to make an autumn? They are still swooping and chattering over the fields, gathering in rocking lines on the tight-rope telegraph wires. Some will stay on for months, but the skies will empty fractionally with each day.
The garden and the wood across the park are quiet, a contrast with the riotous, hormone-fuelled festival of spring. Just the occasional, lonely trill of a treecreeper or the understated chatter of a passing flock of long-tailed tits. Loose feathers betray the birds that have shed them, that hide silently as they grow a new suit of armour to take them through the winter. Soon they will re-emerge, ready to feast on the jewel-like elderberries and blackberries that will help them put on a layer of fat. If you are lucky enough to hold a live bird in your hand and gently blow the feathers to one side, you might be able to see the yellow block of fat under the thin skin of the throat.
It’s time for other animals to start preparing for winter as well. The hedgehog released into my garden from a rescue centre is a healthy enough 500 grams, but needs to put on some more weight before he finds a sheltered corner and settles into hibernation. There’s time enough for him yet to crunch through plenty of beetles, worms and slugs as well as the kitten biscuits I put out as a supplement.
The trees are still fully clothed. They haven’t yet started to shed their summer coat of leaves. But the vibrant green of spring is replaced by browner, duller shades. The leaves are tougher, the pigments more varied. As the tannins develop, the leaves can be dipped in mordant to bring out the pigments and dye fabrics or paper. For now though, they rattle and hiss in the breeze.
Drunken wasps, ejected from dying nests, are blundering around, searching out ready snacks and after a sugar rush. It’s a hazardous time to eat and drink outside, always haunted by the stripy ghosts of summer past. We found a large, chestnut-red striped insect in the garden. A hornet, we thought. But subsequent research revealed it as a hoaxer; a hoverfly mimic. And what potential predator is going to take the risk? It looked convincing enough to be treated with caution. The sun comes out briefly, from behind processional grey clouds that have seemed to have no edge for days. It’s warm. A speckled wood butterfly jitters across the grass. Summer is back, for about half an hour. And then the clouds merge, fill the gap, and autumn has returned.
Mudwriter 