Autumn reveals natural hidden gems

Damien Enright on the joys of strolling in the countryside.

IF ONE woke up in the morning in an unfamiliar city having flown in the night before and, upon opening the curtains, saw such a gorgeous lemon-yellow-and-grey bird wagging its long, thin tail one would surely think one has arrived in some exotic clime where at any minute gibbons would come swinging through the trees and flying foxes glide past the windows.In fact, the bird is our native grey wagtail, often mistakenly called a yellow wagtail because they are more yellow than grey. The actual yellow wagtail is an increasingly rare summer visitor from mainland Europe and not as striking as our resident bird, with its grey mantle and jet black bib.

The grey wagtail is “rare” in that it is local. One won’t find it in every garden; it haunts watery places, and loves rushing rivers and streams where it may be seen perched on stones in midwater, wagging its long tail between sallying forth to pick insects out of the air, sometimes dancing in the air as it does so.

Because we have a small stream beside our garden, we are fortunate in having a pair regularly alight on the slate roof of an annex yards from our living room window.

These days, bass fishers are seen standing in the channel up to their oxters in waders, casting-rods extended and landing-nets to hand. Small boats drift up and down on the tide, trolling lures behind them. The bass are “in” and, while there is a dutifully observed weight limit and bag limit, some big fish are being caught.

From east Cork, a reader reported apple blossom in her orchard on October 18, with a harvest of apples on the trees. We had a primrose in full flower on our stream bank on October 10. I’ve been recording the early appearance of primroses at an ancient abbey nearby — earlier each year and now not unusual well before Christmas. Was our primrose the last of this year’s or the first of next year’s, we asked.

When I go walking, an old springer spaniel often falls in with me as I pass and limps alongside, a good walking companion. It is heart-warming, the friendliness of dogs.

Faded tortoiseshell butterflies and brilliant red admirals flit about in the yellow autumn sunlight. The tortoiseshells will soon seek indoor shelter in which to hibernate behind wardrobes or curtains. The admirals will die off; newcomers will fly in from mainland Europe in spring.

Hazelnuts, beechnuts, acorns and sweet chestnuts litter the woodland paths. I gather half a pocket of hazels, find a stone and break them on a fence post but the shells are empty more often than not.

Recalling the children’s rhyme “Here we go gathering nuts in May”, I think to myself surely that’s wrong, the only place you’d find nuts in May would be Brazil or Australia. I later discover that words were originally “knots of May”, relating to the custom of gathering “knots” of flowers, particularly hawthorn blossom, to celebrate Bealtaine, the old pagan knees-up on May 1.

Meanwhile, back at our potting shed, female spiders are consuming their husbands — hardly an edifying spectacle, but it would surely be the height of presumption to interrupt their meal. This is the order of things in the spider world. Big Mammy-Long-Legs gets to eat little Daddy-Long-Legs after the nuptials. He’s had his thrills, now she has her dinner. And so when she lays her eggs, strong, well-nurtured spiderlets will be born. Mammy-long-legs is herself the “widow maker”.

It is, once again, a pleasure to see the autumn sun light the village street where boys hurl a ball back and forth in the quiet of the afternoon, and nobody to gainsay them. It lights the bay waters and we feel we live in a blessed world.