rowan. I could hear the chatter of the fieldfares, but
theredwingsweregonetome.Thesebirdswere
ravenous, plundering the land like Viking marauders.
Every time I came to another rowan tree, unseen
birds would fall from the branches one by one at my
approach, dropping out of it before rising.
It seemed astounding that one little tree could hold
so many birds that were invisible to me. Every time
I thought that must be it, they must all be gone now,
another group would pour out of the tree’s hidden
recesses, and the ground beneath the rowans would be
slick with their spillage.
Deepinthewoods,Iwassurprisedbyasuddenpeal
of birdsong; the autumn song of the robin, one of the
few birds other than the wren that sings almost the
whole year round. I sat and watched it singing to the
world, and wondered if I was hearing its whole song or
just a sample of its lower notes, or if perhaps it was just
that this song is like an echo of its full spring song, with
less variety, less range, than the full-throated melodies
Ihadlistenedtofromalltherobinssingingonthe
shores of Loch Morar back in March. Either way it was
enough to delight me, out of season, in a year which
had held so little song for me.
The robin is one of the few birds that hold a territory
throughout the winter, for it cannot bear the company
of others. Its call is the auditory equivalent of a ‘keep
out’ sign, or challenge to all comers. It sings because it
wants to be alone. And yet our subjective response to
thenaturalworldhasakindofvalidityofitsownevenwhen it bears little relationship to reality. There is
certainly something very moving about a solitary bird
singing into silence at year’s end. After the vitality and
exuberance of spring, this is a bird that will not let go.
It sings on amidst the falling leaves, it sings on as the
nights draw in, it sings on as all about it falls quiet.
This bird’s song may not have the sheer brio that it
had when the year was young, but it has subtlety and
a seemingly elegiac, thoughtful quality. It sounds like
the voice of experience, and I cannot fault it for its
tenacity. When all else has given up, it just keeps right
on singing; I am still here. No surrender.
Extract from The Last Wilderness by Neil Ansell
(The Tinder Press).“When all else has given up it
just keeps right on singing. I
am still here. No surrender”
Seed
BY TIM DEE
Nature writer Tim Dee’s happiness comes from
being outside, where the fields and fens have
worked their way into his heart. It’s a complicated
relationship, full of joy for the wonders of nature and
tinged with melancholy for the beleaguered wildness.I
was on the fen when summer turned to autumn. Each
incoming season is made out of the ruins of the last.
Summer’s drying gives way to autumn’s fall. A quiet
and still day had come and passed. In the autumn the
sun itself can look dead in the sky, as if the light has
already been switched off somewhere, and all we get is
the colour of the bulb. This was such a day. But then, in
the late afternoon, a little local breeze cooked up close
to the ground of the fen at Burwell. There is more
thistle than grass in these acres, and I watched the dry
lick of warm air begin to lift the thistledown. EveryESCAPE (^) | NATURE