Hawthorn Hill Nature Diary: Nov 21

Early morning. The valley gathers the skirts of mist about it, folds of it cloaking the further hills, the valley rift a dragons breath. Cool it is, though warm still for November and wet. Winter catching hold of us. But slowly. Not yet closed it’s fist. Things are slowed. Quiet. As I walk the stillness is shattered by the a raucous pheasant. On the hill side the wasps nest is finally done. Comb strewn to the hillside and the last workers gone. Just beyond a spray of feathers where something has hunted. Both the Pine Marten and the fox hunt here.

Through the mist the weak winter sun filters. Silver. Bronze where the sun pierces the mist. The bracken blackening bordering the field. The beech leaves wet copper on the beaten tin colour of the road.

Here and there the younger trees hold their leaves. Year old sprays of hawthorn where the hedge has been cut are still in leaf. A two year old willow stem here and there cling on. The young oak the forestry put in this year hold their leaves too. Dead trees too down in the first of the winters wind. A great old ash, still with intact bark, heeled over in the last mild storm, rootball torn and shaggy with soil facing the sun.

The older hawthorns are bare of leaf but still berry full. Along the roadside, where the phone company butchered the treeline with a circular blade, an angry robin flits from stump to stump chivvying me along my way. The cut limbs still heavy with haws. His berries. Not mine.

There are still bats hunting the farm. Fewer though it seems. Though the midges still fly in the mild weather. Enough to drive the children indoors with the bites and itch. In November. It’s unsettling. The primrose and the bramble back in flower too in the November warmth. Woodsmoke now settles and curls in the corners of the yard and the field margins as we light our stove. The red squirrel is still about. Two sprint across the coppered leaved road as I take a wake, one tumbles into the neighbours hedgerow, it’s mate climbs an old ash and disappears into the crown.

Later in the month the starlings wheel over the small spruce woods at the back of the farm. The trees here tall. They chitter and swarm but do not settle. Often they prefer a neighbours sycamore, or the cypress grove by the yard. Cold comes, finally, too. We feel our first frost towards the end of the month. The 21st. Late it is. There have been Mid November days of 14 degrees. Midges still flying this deep into the month. I should welcome the late warmth and the grass it brings. But it is a sign of unsettled things. I think about what the changing climate will bring. About my hazel trees that never lost leaf last year. Small signs of uncertain things to come.

I am out in the world and it is in me. I am in the quiet, and the quiet is in me. Even here. As things slow down and the world winds into a wintry close, there is wonder and comfort to be had. I am grateful.