Summer

by Melissa Harrison

  The work ethic and selfless sociability of ants may be admired as qualities of fascinating but mindless automatons until the robots appear intentional. Hundreds of ants marching across your kitchen floor and getting, literally or metaphorically, in your pants, quickly provokes ecophobia which is fundamental to preserving civilisation. ‘Buzz Off! Family forced to eat under a mosquito net after swarms of flies invade Avonmouth’ (Daily Mail). ‘Beemageddon – school closed, shoppers attacked and car covered as swarm of bees cause chaos’ (Mirror). ‘Thousands of Wasps Found in UK Home Devouring Bed’ (abc News). ‘Ginormous Jellyfish Swarm England’ (gogo News). Swarms represent Nature out of control. There is a tipping pint into panic somewhere between many and too many, any large number of ants, bees, jellyfish, toads, bats, sparrows or locusts.

  This horror of the swarm might have to do with the sheer numbers of creatures in one place or doing something strange when a lesser number of the same thing would appear beautiful. Take mayflies: they spend a year in the mud of slow-moving rivers and streams, moulting through different stages until the adults all hatch together, then they take to the air to mate, the females lay eggs in the river and they are all dead in forty-eight hours. One spring, Nancy and I went to Ironbridge to see the River Severn when the water level was at an all-time low. As tyres screeched along the Wharfage, we dropped down behind the car park into a silent cloud of mayflies, glimmering with golden light above the water. By the time the sun set behind the cooling towers of the power station, the swarm had vanished, washed downriver. The next morning felt like a change in the seasons and by afternoon a gang of swifts were screaming around the church tower – they had come back from their travels. The swifts brought new weather and a soft, scent-releasing rain. The suddenness in the sky was charged with swashbuckling clouds and a rain of mad birds, gold swarms and iridescent wings. These things were not just loose ephemera but essential elements of a seasonal shift which opened the sky to summer.

  Paul Evans, Field Notes from the Edge, 2015

  The day starts disconcertingly, with small frogs being flushed out of the cold water tap. The water supply comes from a spring on the hill behind the house and it is sealed by a concrete lid. I can only assume the frogs gain entry by climbing up the long grass stems and into the overflow pipe. They obviously spawn there and leave by the same route. Around the pools and lakes at this time of the year the grass is often alive with such tiny frogs, only recently emerged from their aquatic domain. Herons are quick to avail themselves of such an easy meal without having to undergo the usual patient waiting for fish. In the field below the spring, I can see two of them stalking stiffly through the long grass like tall and slender ballet dancers, stabbing every so often into the ground.

  This hasn’t been a good year at all. Despite the promise of a warm and dry spring and summer, it has been cool and wet – catastrophic for ground-nesting birds and fledglings. Today is no different, beginning with light showers broken by the odd sunny spell. I utilize the longer breaks to weed the rockery of some of the more rampant of the wild plants: rosebay willow herb, dandelion and herb robert, buttercups and nettles, but leave the vetch, bilberry, teasel and, of course, the wild strawberries. Weeding is easy on this soil, because it is finely crumbled rock, like a coarse sand and the roots come away easily. Among the rosebay I discover a fat elephant hawk moth caterpillar with its large painted ‘eyes’ to frighten-off predators.

  Late afternoon, during a lull, I stroll up the valley road, past the old lead mine. The ruins of the roofless winding house with its crumbling walls looks like a smashed skull, with ferns growing from window-orifices. On the hill behind it, sheep are ascending slowly in single file like humble pilgrims departing a shrine. One of the fields close by has the appearance of a green firmament, speckled with white starts, which on closer inspection turn out to be fresh horse mushrooms. They provide a wonderful side-dish for dinner that evening, after I discard the few riddled with grubs.

  Both the following days and nights bring continuous heavy showers and strong blustery winds; the sky lies on the hills like armour plate – heavy and oppressive. It is such a pity that the weather is so obstinate because the hills are looking their best now, with a light purple dusting of heather, interspersed with freckles of chrome-yellow gorse and a touch here and there of pastel blue harebells and mauve of betony. There is a good crop of bilberries this year and, despite the rain, I manage to fill two sandwich boxes in under an hour from one small patch above the fir line.

  I don waterproofs and climb the north-eastern ridge. The stream is as full as in winter and rushes in torrents down the valley; the ground is as leaky as a colander and water trickles out of every pore and crevice. I climb up through the hanging oakwood which extends up from the road and then through the bracken, following the sheep tracks, slipping and sliding as I try to maintain my foothold. Three buzzards are circling above me, one of them mewing. They are probably hungry and are utilising a lull in the weather to take wing again. A female kestrel hovers below me, with what looks like a jess dangling from its leg.

  Over the lakes a lone kite is circling, while a little below on the hillside leading into the lakes two men are inserting fence posts. Their hammering reverberates around the valley like a loud expletive in a gentlemen’s club. The fencing, too, in its strict geometry of containing lines offends against nature’s anarchy. The farmer has cleared the whole hillside of its rich gorse and bracken scrub and reseeded it with fescue grass and root crop for the sheep.

  Four ravens plunge over the brow of the hill, croaking with annoyance at the intruding figures. A pair of mistle thrushes feed readily on the freshly planted ground and a female wheat-ear rummages among an overlooked clump of large thistles on one of which a painted lady butterfly is languidly flapping. As I pass the oak wood by the cottage I’m surprised to hear a wood warbler trilling, but the song is snapped off like a twig before completion, as the bird realises it’s pointless now. The sky is now clear and the western horizon tugs at a sun reluctant to vacate the cloying blue.

  23 July

  John Green, Wings Over the Valley: A Bird Watcher’s Wales Diary, 2000

  Summer Dawn

  Pray but one prayer for me ’twixt thy closed lips,

  Think but one thought of me up in the stars.

  The summer night waneth, the morning light slips,

  Faint & grey ’twixt the leaves of the aspen, betwixt the

  cloud-bars,

  That are patiently waiting there for the dawn:

  Patient and colourless, though Heaven’s gold

  Waits to float through them along with the sun.

  Far out in the meadows, above the young corn,

  The heavy elms wait, and restless and cold

  The uneasy wind rises; the roses are dun;

  Through the long twilight they pray for the dawn.

  Round the lone house in the midst of the corn.

  Speak but one word to me over the corn,

  Over the tender, bow’d locks of the corn.

  William Morris, published 1858

  Ask a child to draw a butterfly. Chances are they won’t design a ‘little brown job’ – a gatekeeper or a meadow brown. Commas are a bit ragged around the edges and what about dingy or grizzled skippers? Sounds more like the name of a dodgy bar or salt-crusted old fisherman, than a delicately marked little insect.

  Instead, let their imaginations take them on a journey through colours and shapes and textures. Add detail, make it elegant, make it showy and ostentatious: draw a butterfly as you would like to see one dancing among bright flowers and swaying grasses.

  Perhaps you’ll start to get close to the swallowtail butterfly Papilio machaon (britannicus).

  Butterfly watching is the perfect way to while away a fragrant, hot afternoon. First of all, butterflies like the sunshine – warm, dry days – the kind associated with sipping Pimm’s in the back garden, mowing the lawn, barbeques on the patio and the slightly flat notes of an approaching ice
cream van. Butterflies love long days with tuneful mornings and colourful sunsets that last until midnight. They enjoy gentle breezes and the rich smell of pollen filling the air.

  These particular butterflies happen to inhabit very beautiful places, too. Swallowtails are one of our rarest butterflies, making their home in small pockets of the vast and waterlogged Norfolk Broads. Their range is restricted in the UK by the availability of milk-parsley on which they lay their eggs and their habitat has diminished over recent years. Strumpshaw Fen, Hickling Broad and Ranworth Broad, however, remain strongholds for the swallowtail.

  You mustn’t be impatient, either; devote an entire lazy afternoon to your quest. This is yet another excuse to savour precious summer days.

  Begin your wander through woodlands. Investigate sunlit clearings where the earth is dappled with gold: warm and sheltered and safe. You’re not just looking for swallowtails today. Pause and sweep the area carefully, looking for movements – there. A black beauty takes to the air and drifts atop the brambles. The white admiral stands out with the same timelessness of a little black dress, with just a simple white band across the wings: understated and classic.

  Continue your walk out into the meadows and reedbeds. If you’re lucky a grasshopper warbler will start up. With head raised high and twisting slowly left to right, this little bird sounds like a fishing reel being let out. A plop in a nearby dyke might alert you to a water vole – and don’t forget to keep a sharp eye out for the dragonflies.

  Chocolate-coloured Norfolk hawkers prowl along the edge of the water, while stately emperors roam imposingly. Chasers, darters and skimmers skirt merrily across the water’s surface and the banded demoiselle abounds.

  Take breaks regularly – this is gruelling exercise after all. Explore the wildflower beds rich in pollen and buzzing with bees. Another movement – this one, though, is the quintessential buddleia butterfly: the peacock. Like a real peacock, it’s flamboyant enough – large, ruby red with a spectacular pattern of purple-blue ‘eyes’ on the wing, but you may not have noticed it at first. With wings closed, it is nothing more than a dead leaf, but when slowly opened an inner and unexpected beauty is revealed.

  The afternoon may be wearing on, but don’t despair. The swallowtail won’t be rushed. It’ll take to the wing when it’s good and ready and not one moment before. Lean against the wooden boardwalks and cast your eye over a large bed of tangled nettles, grasses and summer wildflowers.

  Something catches your eye. A large – larger than expected – shape lifts languidly into the air. The peacock makes a random flight, as if suddenly startled. The white admiral goes gliding across the clearing with scarcely a flap of the wing. This creature is larger and more powerful. It skims across the top of the vegetation before dropping down on to a flower – almost out of sight. It flaps its wings frenetically to hold itself steady as it feeds and then moves into full view with wings outstretched.

  This is the butterfly of a child’s imagination.

  Almost ten centimetres across, the black borders of the wings slope gently backwards as it perches. A golden, creamy yellow fills the centre of the wings and the tail curves down elegantly into two points, much like the fork in a swallow’s tail. It’s exquisitely shaded in midnight blue, as if by an artist’s hand, and a large red dot sits dead centre.

  Another one joins it and you watch the pair circle over the greenery, their wings looking as if they have absorbed the richness of the summer sun.

  Before long, the butterflies have settled and it’s time to move on. The sun is hot on your back and it’s a fair walk. The grasshopper warbler starts up again, acting as a guide. The air is alive with the hum of insects all busy in their own way. You’re not busy though – just satisfied.

  You’ve earned that glass of Pimm’s.

  Lucy McRobert, 2016

  Now, it’s summer and the city’s loud with the calls of swifts and gulls. A new season, a new ecology of sound. With each season we gain or lose in the vast, global avian exchange of house martin and goose, sanderling and oystercatcher. Each migrating bird carries with it something of ourselves, our sense of memory perhaps, our circannual response to sight and voice.

  Summer itself is a concept which seems to shift and spin – here, all the seasons seem mutable – warmth or cold depend on where you’ve come from, where you’re going. For seabirds and waders flown from the Arctic, it’s summer in December.

  Here in the northeast of Scotland we tell ourselves that, after the privations of winter, we deserve a decent summer, as if there’s some transcendent meteorological structure of punishment and reward. In fact, summer’s just another season which – like everywhere else – may appear reluctantly or not at all. Occasionally though, it’s sudden and glorious in glittering sunrises on the sea-edge, a few rare, hot mornings which will be paid for in the haar which by afternoon, will have slid over the city as a damp white net of salty chill. You can become lost in the seasons, disorientated like birds primed for migration too early by unseasonal temperatures or, after a few cold, lightless days of raining grey, preparing inwardly for hibernation, even in July. (Which month is it? When is Christmas?) In our summer, there’s an undertow of anxiety, a small voice somewhere telling us to grasp the moment, for the moment won’t be long.

  The short-eared owls I’ve been watching all winter and spring will probably have left. I haven’t been to see them for weeks but by now, in response to temperature or hunger or the mysterious, powerful force of Zugunruhe – migratory restlessness – they may already have gone.

  It’s not just among birds – there’s an urgent, unstoppable human Zugunruhe too, manifest at this time of year in crowded airports and quiet streets. Even in the heart of the city, the roads are almost empty. The 4x4s will be silent until August.

  In these tranquil weeks, there’s a mild, post-apocalyptic feel, a sense both exciting and melancholy of something being different. It seems natural to turn the world asunder, to imagine it always like this, the sounds of humans replaced by the sounds of birds in a radical re-population, an establishment, or re-establishment of rights. It’s the way things ought be, not how they really are. Walking through the streets, you walk through warm sea breeze and gull-song.

  For months, the gulls have been demonstrating their mighty, operatic passions from their ancestral rooftops, sending arias down the deep granite walls to rise in echo through the streets and lanes. Now, in culmination of long weeks of re-uniting, nesting, mating, young gulls stumble and flap on the roads or lie as small, feathered corpses in the gutters. (Which destination is so urgent as to be worth the life of an infant gull?) As I walk, I think about how or why these birds seem to personify the antipathy many city-dwellers direct towards the natural world, as if gulls transgress by crossing an elusive, invisible boundary between them and us. We seem to have lost the idea of co-existence, if we ever had it. We venerate the concept of wildness without asking what it is. We believe we know what and where is best, purest, wildest and that is invariably, the place furthest from ourselves.

  In the mornings of summer, I watch new young birds at the feeders, delving among mealworm and grain. Weeks only from the egg, already they have found their way in the microcosm of biosphere which is my garden. Their lives are so immediate. They hatch, altricial, nidicolous, naked, featherless, blind, dependent and now, so quickly, they’re here, flying, negotiating, seeming still so small and young to be out amid the hazards of the world, feeding in the sunshine or in the chill grey of a northern July.

  Out of town too, the wide roads are quiet, the stretch of coast beyond the town empty on a warm, late afternoon as I walk and paddle, ankle-deep. The city dog-walkers I usually see here are away, lying on other, hotter beaches. Their dogs will be boarded out in kennels, waiting.

  From the beginning of this bay at the edges of the city to the wide sweep north, you can question everything – boundaries, where realms begin or end, what’s wild or isn’t. Here, there are almost too many lessons in perceptio
n, ways of being assailed by words of paradox and contradiction: city or wild, urban or natural, crowded or alone.

  On the way home, I stop to see if the owls are still here. For months now I’ve been watching them in their unlikely golf links home in the shadow of a cluster of high-rise flats. Lightly blown rubbish is strung along perimeter fences, gathered in the hollows of sandy bunkers with their worn plastic rakes. I wait for a while but don’t see them. If they are still here, it’s probably too late in the day to see them. Asio flammeus – short-eared owls – keep strange hours, the hours of nightclub DJs, of wakeful infants.

  I came to see them first with a friend, an expert bird-watcher and listener who told me they were here. On an ice-bright morning we watched these open-country, nomadic fliers; all-seeing, all-hearing, wild, flying from the dunes on long, narrow wings like feathered frisbees, turning, landing, staring from dark-ringed yellow eyes from their fence-post perches, unbothered by our watching. Skylarks hopped at our feet as we followed the movement of the low circling, hovering birds, as we took in the angle of their dives before seeing through our lenses the small pouch of fur, the pair of dangling feet, our hearts swopping elation for pity in an instant. Birds flown from other realms, from poetry, the liminal watches of dusk and night – as they flew, myth and omen, human superstition, the patronage of goddesses trailed behind them from snuff and rust and copper feathers.