All change as summer turns to autumn
Bright red rowan-berries add that vivid touch of colour to a landscape that already seems to be mourning the forthcoming departure of summer, whilst preparing to welcome the harvest season of autumn.
It is as if some kind of requiem is being prepared by nature to celebrate the memory of a long, hot summer with the purple hues of great swathes of rosebay willowherb swaying beside our roadsides and in our hedgerows.
These ‘fire-weeds’, which famously colonised the ruins of cities up and down the United Kingdom after Hitler’s bombs had rained down, are of course fast turning to feathery clusters of white seeds.
These ethereal white bundles of future life represent both an ending and a beginning, for all of them, as their purple flowers turn to seed, are destined to be randomly dispersed by the wind to places where they can establish further colonies. Nature certainly re-cycles with a vengeance.
The purple theme is continued on hillsides where heaths and heathers dominate. But it is the red glow of those rowans that catches the eye, their berries here already stripped by hordes of blackbirds - a harvest that has been reaped with great enthusiasm and well before the harvest moon is due to hang in our skies like a huge yellow lantern.
Rowans of course, have an important and universal part to play in folklore. For example, hardly an old farmhouse in the Emerald Isle is without its complement of rowan trees, for rowans were said to protect houses, steadings and beasts. In England, rowans were said to ward off witches and indeed it was an old custom to fashion rowan twigs into crosses and hang them above doorways as a sure way to keep those witches away. Here in Scotland, the rowan is revered and I know of any number of foresters who would never even consider felling a rowan tree. Again, older houses are more often than not ‘guarded’ by rowan trees. We, perhaps, have double indemnity with a yew tree as well as rowans!
Many of the old ‘holy wells’ that one still finds religiously marked on Ordnance Survey maps, have banks of rowans around them. I wonder whether those who design modern supermarket car parks, are also convinced that rowans may bring them good fortune? In such places, rowans are apparently a must as a decoration and may provide unusual places where we can perhaps watch wildlife at work in the autumn!
Curiously enough, there appears to be an understanding among the birds that some rowans should be left as a winter reserve of food. If my berries are all but gone, there is certainly one supermarket car park of my ken, where they do not seem to have been touched. However, the belief that a good crop of berries predicts a severe winter to come is one of those myths, which, although it is frequently cited, may well be false.
It is my belief that a good crop is more indicative of a good growing summer past than a prediction of bad weather.
If it may seem that the likes of blackbirds and thrushes and later the invading hordes of fieldfares, redwings and in some years, waxwings, may rely on the rowan berries as an important source of food, then so too are the rowans reliant upon those self-same birds for re-generation. The seeds contained in the fruits will not germinate unless they have passed through the acid ridden guts of birds! A fair exchange?
The same may be said of the red berries of the yew. Again, some parts of yew berries are poisonous yet as they pass through the birds’ guts, the poisons are not released. Brambles however, contain no poisons. Once upon a time, as these bulbous, succulent fruits ripened, hordes of bucket wielding folk would suddenly appear along our brambleridden hedgerows as if from nowhere. No doubt their minds conjured up images of delicious jellies, jams and tarts or pies as the fruits of such labours! It is a tradition that some still pursue but now enthusiasm for gathering of Nature’s harvest seems to be waning. And I suppose cultivated blackberries are freely available in the shops anyway!
What surprises many folk is that famed carnivores such as foxes and pine marten can at times be quite omnivorous with brambles a particular favourite. Tod or Reynard always gets a pretty bad press for one might think that foxes survive entirely upon lambs, game birds and hens! In reality, Brer Fox has a surprisingly varied diet. To see a fox hunting voles for instance is to watch movement of sheer beauty. The fox, having discovered a regularly used vole run will sit and wait with remarkable patience, those big ears so finely tuned and constantly moving to pick up vital signals to ensure that an approaching vole is heard if not seen.
Now the fox prepares itself, standing stock-still before, as the unwitting vole arrives at the point being so closely scrutinised by the fox, the hunter now arcs upwards like a cat and then unerringly pounces upon the spot now occupied by the vole. To complete the hunt, the fox seizes the hapless rodent in its teeth, its forepaws providing the necessary supplementary force.
What surprises many folk is the fact that one of the most important items on the fox menu is worms. Indeed worms may turn out to be crucial to quite a number of predators. Buzzards for instance take worms. A few days ago I spent some time watching a buzzard scouring a pasture for its worms. There were moments of comedy as the bird shuffled about on those ‘pantalooned’ legs, now and again clumsily darting forward to snaffle the said worms.
The retreat of those hot, dry days, which have dominated the summer thus far and the belated arrival of rain will of course have had the effect of encouraging more worms to the surface.
Gulls, of course, have developed an interesting technique of persuading worms that it is raining even when the sun is shining out of a clear blue sky. The gulls simply mark time, their feet pitter-pattering to resemble falling raindrops. The worms fall for this deception and accordingly rise to the surface to be immediately consumed. Owls too sometimes join in at night to feast on worms.
The roaring voices of combines will soon echo across the landscape – some have already been in action – but Nature’s harvest is more prolonged. In the weeks to come, fruits, acorns, beechmast, nuts and seeds will be gathered by all manner of creatures, some to be stored some to be consumed on the spot. Now, as summer begins to wane, we may see nature’s harvest carefully gathered - the fulfilment of what has been a long and sunny summer.