Mosses and fungus
Leaves float down from the canopy in the stillness of the morning, There's the high-pitched note of goldcrest, of coal-tits, with nuthatch and rooks flying through a misty morning. A buzzard mews and I hear the raucous call of a jay, unseen. Sounds of water pervade the dale, from fell-side becks down to the River Kent. Raindrops saturate grasses. Spider silk brushes my face but there are few webs. Seed-heads of bluebells peep through bronze bracken out in the open above Kentmere Tarn. The woods are green with mosses and bracken in the shade is still in the green. Fungi swarm up tree trunks and fallen trees take on the witchy-look of the season at the approach of Halloween.
The Fall is all about us. Last Saturday storm Amy brought strong winds and heavy rains that stripped some trees bare of leaves overnight, a scouring of the woods that brought down branches, twigs, and fruit. My feet crunch on a thick layer of acorns and oak leaves, mingling with deep red haws. Distinctive scents of autumn are in the air, something earthy and dank. Above us, a hawthorn is laden with berries, a bumper year for fruit, a mast year. Do not eat blackberries after 29th September, Michaelmas Day, because the Devil has spat on them. So folk-lore tells. It looks that way today. Bramble leaves colour-up and show plaguey blotches of decay. A late flower appears but fruits look shrivelled as rot sets in. September rains came and withered them. Storm Amy is the finishing touch. Ragwort seed-heads are white and bedraggled. The last yellow flowers and leaves identify the plant, for me. In autumn and winter guise many plants seem less familiar. The virtue of a well-loved walk is to know what you have seen, what you will see, through the seasons. So seed-heads amidst bracken revive a memory of banks of bluebells visited by orange-tip butterflies.
The Fall is all about us. Last Saturday storm Amy brought strong winds and heavy rains that stripped some trees bare of leaves overnight, a scouring of the woods that brought down branches, twigs, and fruit. My feet crunch on a thick layer of acorns and oak leaves, mingling with deep red haws. Distinctive scents of autumn are in the air, something earthy and dank. Above us, a hawthorn is laden with berries, a bumper year for fruit, a mast year. Do not eat blackberries after 29th September, Michaelmas Day, because the Devil has spat on them. So folk-lore tells. It looks that way today. Bramble leaves colour-up and show plaguey blotches of decay. A late flower appears but fruits look shrivelled as rot sets in. September rains came and withered them. Storm Amy is the finishing touch. Ragwort seed-heads are white and bedraggled. The last yellow flowers and leaves identify the plant, for me. In autumn and winter guise many plants seem less familiar. The virtue of a well-loved walk is to know what you have seen, what you will see, through the seasons. So seed-heads amidst bracken revive a memory of banks of bluebells visited by orange-tip butterflies.
From the open track above Kentmere Tarn reflections show in still water. In spring, a shapely hazel beside the tarn was thick with catkins and now small green catkins show amidst autumn leaves, awaiting spring. A mast year, a bumper year for fruit, nuts and seeds. Mast years come cyclically, as if trees strive to ensure their future by abundance.
As the valley opens up I recall the cuckoo whose call accompanied us along our way in spring. Today is a day of subtleties and beams of sunlight pick out a whitewashed farmhouse and a distant fell. A wavering and evocative light.
As the valley opens up I recall the cuckoo whose call accompanied us along our way in spring. Today is a day of subtleties and beams of sunlight pick out a whitewashed farmhouse and a distant fell. A wavering and evocative light.
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