Autumn

Autumn, I think it can safely be said, is properly doing its thing. Nature to the left of me, nature to the right of me, nature all around, showing off big time.

Early morning mist draped low over the common like a foggy duvet; jays rushing back and forth stockpiling acorns; latticework leaves on the ground. Trees vying with each other to be the most alluring, grasping their moment to give us a full-on display of beauty – yellows, oranges, reds, greens and browns mingling like a Pantone display unit.

I learn that this mix of colours is down to chlorophyll (green) being replaced with xanthophylls (yellow) and carotenoids (reds and oranges) in the leaves. Soon they too will have had their moment, leaving the brown tannins to complete the cycle.

I learn this, forget it, look it up again and write it down here so I’ll remember next time.

I’m not an especially early riser. In spring I will occasionally heave myself out of bed at a truly appalling time so I can experience the dawn chorus. It’s well worth it, but how much easier is it to rise at seven and still be able to say you’re up at first light?

Thick socks and walking boots, still damp from yesterday’s dewy walk. The birds aren’t quite up yet, except for a passing jackdaw – its single chack almost a rebuke to the indolence of others – and a lone robin, its song piping through the damp morning air. Fluid phrases, a gap, then that moment when a single note seems to run away with itself, out of the bird’s control, like a ball of wool rolling across the floor.

Our little wood is ten minutes away, an urban haven, last remnants of a great forest. It’s not big, but the trees are well established, and something about it gives the impression of space. Ignore the light rumble of traffic and you might just about imagine yourself away from the city and somewhere truly wild. Just about.

There’s a bench over there, but who needs a bench when there’s a log at just the right height to sit on?

All seasons have their attractions, but this week has been a moment of particular perfection. I don’t know what the Japanese micro-season name for the past few days is, but if I were in charge of naming it I’d call it ‘time of obscenely picturesque autumnal pulchritude and invitation to needlessly flowery language’. Invitation partly accepted, but repeat after me: I will not describe the sky as ‘cerulean’ I will not describe the sky as ‘cerulean’ I will not describe the sky as ‘cerulean’.

Two jays shout at each other from high in the canopy. A carrion crow barks its disapproval. A great spotted woodpecker calls from the dead upper branches of a nearby tree, while its green cousin issues a mocking laugh from far away. Somewhere nearby a nuthatch pock-pocks its way along a branch. I won’t try to find it – I’m happy enough on my log. Squirrels – everywhere, hyperactive – chase each other up and down and around and along, casually performing effortless feats of acrobatic brilliance. Cast aside all thoughts of prejudice against non-native invasive species for just ten seconds and watch that one race up that trunk, fearless and poised. 5.8, 5.9, 5.9.

And just when I think it can’t get any more autumny, the sun reaches the point where its rays rise above the rooftops and slant between the angles of the trees and catch the light and hit the floor of the wood just so, and … ok autumn, you win. Come at me. Hit me one more time. Plaster my face with cobwebs. Scatter sprouting fungi at my feet. Place that taste of wood smoke in my nostrils, even though in this part of London there is none and I know I’m conjuring it from thin autumnal air. Fling migrating redwings over my head, their shrill tseeps alerting me to their arrival from the north, harbingers of the true passing of the seasons.

On the way home, a sparrowhawk floats over, its underparts peachy in the reflected light. Four flaps and a glide, then it’s gone. And then woodpigeons, local migrants. Fifty, a hundred, two hundred of them, plump silhouettes against the cerulean DAMMIT blue sky.

It really shouldn’t be allowed. A dazzling, filthy, magnificent, obscene, gratuitous display of the glories of the natural world, all available at a quiet spot near you, wherever you are, completely free of charge, so beneficial to human peace of mind that it should be prescribed on the NHS.

Put it away, autumn. You’ll get yourself arrested.

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