Late summer under the hawthorn tree

“Summer’s lease hath all too short a date ...’— William Shakespeare

SO far, we have had no summer at all. We have had some glorious days of autumn sun and hopefully we will have more. I remember a year when the kids were still swimming in November. But there’s an ominous bite in the air and autumn is on the wing, the leaves and the birds.

With every gust, another hundred leaves come down. Even with no wind, the beech leaves fall, spinning or fluttering like butterflies to the ground. But while beeches are brown, ash trees and alders are still green as summer. The sycamores are daily more ragged. The clusters of “helicopters” at the branch tips shake and will soon fly away to engender other sycamores.

Among the birds, summer migrants are moving south. Passing strangers, blackcaps and flycatchers, use our gardens as service stations for a fill-up as they go. But the insect-eaters mustn’t tarry; there are no more soft-weather hatches, with the grass full of bugs and the air full of midges. Now, the berry-birds come into their own. This year, the hawthorns are dark red with berries and the blackthorns purple with sloes.

Some birds change from insects to seeds or fruit at will. Blackbirds enjoy worms and invertebrates but love nothing better than autumn windfalls or summer soft fruit.

In September, there are still aphids on the roses and the blue tits hunt them relentlessly, hanging upside down to reach the undersides of leaves. Aphids, like various birds, are migratory; there are 500 species in these islands and, while some stick (literally) to their host plant throughout their lives, some “fan out” to other vegetation in summer.

For blue tits, there are still some creepy-crawlies on the menu; it isn’t yet bird-feeder and peanut-time. I’ve heard concern voiced amongst gardeners that providing peanuts in spring and summer may result in blue tits taking the easy option and feeding their young from the garden takeaway.

They worry that nestlings with, perhaps, delicate digestions and specific nutritional needs may suffer bellyache and constipation from a diet of nuts and nothing else. In our human wisdom, we are inclined to think food on the hoof will be better for them than nuts grown on the African or American plains.

However, I think the concern may be misplaced and that parent birds have more sense than to feed their offspring nuts only.

Caterpillars provide a bonanza of food for fledglings just when they need them; in fact, the hatch of eggs and the hatch of caterpillars coincide.

One gorgeous May evening, we sat in a friend’s garden enjoying a barbecue while a pair of blue tits fed their young housed in a wall only yards away. We were amazed by the running buffet they provided; twice every minute one or other parent arrived with a captive caterpillar, curling and wriggling in its beak. A peanut feeder stood close by but was ignored.

Backward and forward dashed the parents to a hawthorn tree where the leaves and branches must have, literally, been crawling with caterpillars there for the taking, like the peanuts in the feeder but clearly much preferred.

Our Irish tits (we have four species; Britain has eight) lay up to 12 eggs; no wonder the parents have a busy time. If two caterpillars are delivered per minute, each nestling gets 10 caterpillars per hour. It’s no wonder the hatchlings grow from egg to independence in just four weeks!

What a useful tree is the familiar hawthorn, the sceac, as it’s called. In May, it is a joy to behold, bedecked with blossom. In winter, its berries are like fires in the hedgerows and provide a bounty for creatures and birds.

It is, according to my book, a food plant for 65 species of moth caterpillar, and each of which, and the adult moths, has its niche in the food chain or its function in pollination and the health of the land.

It provides impenetrable fences between fields and shelter for farm animals. At holy wells, it is the tree upon which petitioners for favours hang their pieces of rag.

In old Ireland, it was a symbol of fertility, and to interfere with it brought misfortune.