Today’s Treasures – Autumn

‘Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness’ that inspired Keats to write his poem ‘To Autumn’.

Leaves turning from green to gold to auburn, watery sunshine filtering through gnarled branches with crooked fingers, stretching towards the light; eiderdown clouds in quilted patterns sending sunbeams spotlighting acorns underfoot.

King Quercus, standing tall, golden oak leaves fluttering down, alongside the copper beech, Queen Fagus, in all her autumn glory; bright red rowan berries adorning the mountain ash eagerly sought after by the birds that remain with us when their cousins fly south for the winter.  The robin, perched at the top of the hawthorn tree, resplendent in his winter red breasted waistcoat sings songs of summers to come.

The red berries of arum lilies and strings of bryony beads decorate hedgerows fluffy with aptly named old man’s beard.

Toadstools love the damp autumn days and often appear overnight like magic, inspiring stories of fairies and elves tiptoeing at tea parties and dancing in fairy rings.

This year is a ‘mast year’ for acorns – every few years some species of trees and shrubs produce a bumper crop of seeds or nuts – guaranteeing that there will be some left over after the badgers, squirrels, mice and birds have eaten their fill – to germinate and grow into baby trees.  Smaller crops in other years give the tree chance to recover energy and also regulate the population of the animals and birds that feed on the nuts.

Published in the December 2022 edition of the Whitchurch Gossip