As hints of autumn signal the season to come, there are signs of hope

AThere is no denying the artistry of a good ploughman

utumn beckons me, in much the same way that the sea does. I have hankered after both for much of my life. An early September appointment in Crail, then, felt like a day starred with good omens. The coast between Auchmithie and St Monans was the sea of my boyhood and youth. No amount of Hebridean journeys (and my life has been liberally stuffed with those) has this kind of hold on me.

I always thought the sun should rise out of the sea, not set in it.

My appointment was brief and concluded by lunchtime, and my lunch was based on one of my simplest of philosophies about food: if you’re going to eat seafood, eat it where they catch fish.

So I sat on the harbour wall with a fresh crab roll and a fresh coffee.

And what with the salt air and the sun on my face and a few still-lingering terns gatecrashing the placid sea a few yards offshore, I was in no hurry to go anywhere.

But ahead of me lay the drive inland to the middle of the country. And as always, when I visit my native coast then have to drive west again, I start cross-examining my motives, wondering why I don’t return to where I unquestionably belong.

No sooner does the drive start than I look for excuses to stop.

The first one was to watch a ploughed field. The earth here is a deep shade of redfox-red and the lowering afternoon sunlight had ennobled the art of the ploughman, burnishing the crests of the furrows and shadowing the depths.

There is a Gaelic word for the swathe of earth turned by the plough — sgriobh — but as far as I know, Lowland Scots has no equivalent. I sense a missed opportunity, for there is no denying the artistry of a good ploughman when the soil is as textured and toned as this. There should be a word that arose out of its own landscape to acclaim the result.

The ploughed earth was further embellished, for it was starred by hundreds of black-headed gulls that had just floated up from the high tide and now waded the crests and troughs of these earthen waves, trawling the invertebrate shoals of the soil.

I had been watching for about 20 minutes when a hefty female buzzard crossed the low skyline of the next field and put every gull to flight. The buzzard is more of a small mammal predator than a birder, and while I’ve seen one lift a young pigeon, I suspect a field full of adult gulls is a level or two above its prey grade.

But that eagle-shaped silhouette is an ancient enough symbol of adversity to activate the ritual of the first line of defence

among flocks of conspicuous and grounded birds, which is not to be a sitting duck.

Clustered fliers in large numbers confuse the predator and the manoeuvre tips the odds in favour of the prey species.

The buzzard crossed the field without pause while the gulls swirled loudly above. In five minutes, all was restored and they gleaned gluttonously among the furrows.

A yellowhammer called from a hawthorn hedge. I like yellowhammers, like their poise and their vivid look-at-me bravado that fires to a particularly deep canary shade in autumn sunlight. The species does have its own Lowland Scots word — yellayite, or just yite — which I also like.

It’s no canary when it opens its mouth though. Its single and oft-repeated phrase ends in a strung-out metallic “ziinngg!” as if it is constantly surprising itself.

Something made me reach for a pen, and a sketch of a poem spilled over the paper.

And oh the yellow light And the caller air And the yellayite zinging On the wire there, bright In autumn-leaf-yellow-and-brown And thistledown.

One day, I’ll finish it...

These first savours of autumn in such a tranquil and Lowland landscape are little more than dropped hints of the season to come. Mostly, the trees are still green here, the hedges still in flower and scented with honeysuckle. Second and third brood nesters are still fetching and carrying.

My reluctant westering journey was arrested again by a beautifully unkempt acre wedged between two fields, where a handful of young trees had been planted, among them a yellowing maple and a darkcrimson-leafed sweet chestnut, so close their leaves overlapped. The illusion of flames in a hearth was irresistible.

The world is in one of its gloomier frames of mind.

The coincidence of Afghanistan and Covid and Michael Gove dancing smack of a conspiracy of dark forces hell-bent on bringing society to its knees.

But there are Greens in the Scottish Cabinet, Leigh Griffiths is back at Dens, and autumn is in the wings.

Bring on the geese and the wild swans.

LANDSCAPE: Sometimes a ploughed field, full of gulls and with birds calling from the hedgerows, is enough to inspire poetry.