Fall, leaves, fall; die, flowers, away;
Lengthen night and shorten day;
Every leaf speaks bliss to me
Fluttering from the autumn tree.
(Emily Bronte)
Seasonal adjustment takes a moment to reflect on the season just passed. One of the most observable natural happenings around my way this summer and indeed now into autumn, has been an extraordinary abundance of fruit in the hedgerows, wild plums, blackberries. Now apples, conkers and acorns lie at one’s feet in prodigious numbers.
The most dramatic profusion in my part of Sussex was illustrated by the wild plum trees, or as some call them locally, cherry plums. I never knew there were so many plum trees until they were all revealed, heavily laden this year, their small, yellow and perfectly round fruit. Later the fruit to fall, festooned the roots of their mother host, they gathered in their tens of thousands. Walking the chalk bridleways, the newly yellowed fruit carpet of squelch they were conspicuous in their plenty and lamentable waste.
I gathered what I could, a daily diet of wild plums. But the rotted, fermented were left uneaten, bereft seemingly of insects, birds and other small mammals to come to the feast. A pessimistic friend speculated it was a last hurrah, acute stress felt by the trees, drought had made them profligate, as if planning for a crisis and additional fruit to propagate. That made sense. But listening to the radio, I learnt that this is a “mast year”. A mast year occurs every 5-10 years and is somewhat of a mystery.
One of the mysteries being that all the trees fall into line with the abundant fruiting in the same year. More evidence perhaps that trees of all species communicate. Clever speculators suggest the plenty means those of the more than human communities who feast on the fruit and nuts cannot eat it all and so the fruit uneaten, becomes a good year for the next generation. Trees of course put a huge amount into this over supply of progeny; overabundance is to the detriment of that year’s tree growth. Is the knock-on effect that next year there will be no fruit. Will next year we think back and regret we didn’t gather more?
So often the human condition is to regret what’s gone before, what’s changed, the nostalgic amongst us. Shifting baselines is a way of regretting. So much to regret these days, we should have acted sooner, done things differently. Fortunately, there are those strategically placed to drive change. That’s why we at ELF are pleased to now be part of the Wildlife and Countryside Link and through that association, to have signed the Bristol Declaration on the Insect Decline Crisis. Let’s hope it is not too late. Or all we will have left will be nostalgia. Which melancholy feels about right for this time of year.
Emma Montlake,
Co-Director
