Local naturalist and author Duncan Poyser welcomes the wonders of autumn to our region – and shares his top recommendations for the best parks and woodlands to visit in Cambridgeshire for spectacular autumn displays.
In 1913, The Times published a letter from Richard Lydekker, a keen naturalist and keeper of palaeontology at the British Museum, who reported hearing a cuckoo in Hertfordshire on the exceptionally early date of 4 February. A week later, he wrote again confessing his mistake – he had discovered that a labourer working nearby had the gift of producing a note-perfect rendition of the cuckoo’s call. The pair of letters amused readers of the paper so much that they started to write in when they heard their first cuckoo of the year, and The Times continues to notify the world of this annual event through its letters page.
Phenology is the study of biological cycles in plants and animals and how these are influenced by seasonal and climatic changes. It’s a tricky, but important, area of study that we all engage with whenever we focus our senses upon the natural world and notice seasonal change.
The Cambridgeshire naturalist Leonard Jenyns, curate of Swaffham Bulbeck for 22 years from 1827, made meticulous and systematic notes on climate and seasonal change. An exceptional observer, he was first choice for ship’s naturalist aboard HMS Beagle in 1831, but ill health and parish commitments led him to turn down the offer. He suggested that his friend, Charles Darwin, might be considered instead and the rest, as they say, is history.
Jenyns’ detailed notes have been suitably archived and provide a valuable baseline, allowing for comparison with current data to evidence significant phenological shifts – the effect of climatic warming – over centuries. We now experience a shortened or ‘squeezed’ winter period, with the vestiges of autumn lingering later and the markers of spring appearing earlier than those recorded by Jenyns 200 years ago.
Changing times
Our first sight of a swooping swallow, nodding snowdrop flower or pollen-dusted hazel catkin are all signifiers of an expectant spring, but the shifts from the height of summer into a balmy autumn are more subtle, protracted and diffuse.
The heatwaves of the past two summers may have confused the amateur phenologist further, as the drought has prompted trees and shrubs to drop their leaves early and hasten their production of mast (fruits, seeds and nuts). This appears to the human eye as a ‘false autumn’, as plants bid for survival in response to extremes of heat and a baked earth.
As I look out of my kitchen window, writing in late August, the leaves on the sycamore are reddening, bruised blue sloes hang off the blackthorn and the branches of the lone silver birch at the bottom of the garden are almost bare. This may not be so unusual, but strikingly the scene is very similar to the one at the tail end of July.
It is the colour changes that we most notice as high summer fades and swathes of plants transition from vibrancy, fertility and growth towards a muted winter dormancy. In Cambridgeshire, the palette across the fields and fens shifts from the chlorophyll- drenched greens of spring, through the parched ochring of summer to pitch into a rich autumnal patina of gold, bronze and copper. Beneath these vivid washes of colour, the tonal drones of the soil provide an earthy canvas – be it dark peats, flint- peppered chalk, grey clays or dusty silts.
Autumn is an uncloaking, a landscape-wide chemical reveal, as green pigments in plants fade away to allow the yellow and orange of carotenoids and the russet, claret and red of anthocyanins to take the lead and colour the leaves before they fall.
Soaking up the season
In the US, visitors flock to New England to view the autumnal colours through the woodlands and across the hillsides. As much as $8 billion is spent annually within this foliage economy. Likewise in Japan, millions of tourists visit the most impressive sites to view Koyo (the seasonal colours of yellow, orange and red) and Momiji (the intense reds of maple leaves) – and the term Momijigari means ‘hunting red leaves’. So where might you set about your own Momijigari this autumn?
It’s usually wise to start local, spending time searching for the reddest leaves you can find in a garden, along a riverside, lode bank or in a park. But if you want to go bigger and see the Koyo – the autumnal spectrum – in all its kaleidoscopic glory, a visit to a woodland is a must.
Best woodlands and parklands to visit in Cambridgeshire this autumn
Although not the most wooded of counties, Cambridgeshire does boast plenty of mature woodland where you can seek out the best of the seasonal colours. Taking points of the compass, a visit to Castor Hanglands in the north, Chippenham Fen in the east, Hayley Wood to the south or Brampton Wood in the west should be productive. Each of these woodlands has its own character and feel, its own sense of place and its own deep ecological history.
To see colours in a more structured, curated setting, Anglesey Abbey offers impressive stands of beeches within the extensive parklands, and the bonus of gardens designed with the changing seasons in mind.
It’s not just plants that reflect the changes into the autumn. Avian summer visitors such as swallows, swifts and an array of warblers move southwards as insect numbers decrease, while a wave of winter visitors – waders, wildfowl and berry-eating thrushes – arrive from the north and east to feed across wetlands and hedgerows. Hedgehogs feed voraciously through the night preparing for a winter hibernation, and on the woodland floor, fungi – the fruiting bodies of mycelial networks hidden beneath the soil and within decaying trunks and branches – emerge to release spores and reproduce.
No matter our surroundings, urban or rural, there is seasonal change to observe and enjoy if, like Jenyns and Darwin, we keep our eyes and minds open.
Lead image: © Roger Poyser
Looking for more ideas for local days out? Discover what’s on in Cambridge this month.