There are some days in early autumn where a kind of second spring occurs; the world is slipping into dormancy, but there are poignant reminders of when life was resurgent.
As the chlorophyll in them breaks down, the lime-green leaves on the ash trees overhanging the River Wharfe have the same delicate, gem-like translucence as when they were new. The weather is a volatile brew of warm sun, roving downpours and rainbows. Vibrant green pastures shine against backdrops of bruise-dark cloud. Our hemisphere is tilting towards winter, but in the quality of light, and the echoes of vernal freshness, it has briefly met April coming the other way.
Darkness is closing in, but autumn has its own kind of hopefulness. The swallows and sand martins of Wharfedale departed for Africa weeks ago, apparently taking the warmth with them, but there is another kind of wild energy at work now: a cold alchemy, the power of which draws in salmon from the Atlantic and flocks of fieldfare from the Arctic.
After our walk, which takes us through a series of drenching, dazzling sun showers, we stop for a pint outside the Red Lion in Burnsall, where the beer garden overlooks the Wharfe. We are in the middle of swapping banter with a man at the next table when his companion spots something in the water and shouts in excitement, prompting a dozen or so people to stand up from their tables to see what the fuss is about.
“It’s an otter!” someone says. I wonder if it might be something less secretive, like a mink, but then I see it for myself – an unmistakably large, whiskered head, right in the middle of the water, looking in our direction. It dives back into the current with a serpentine slickness, bobs back up a little further downstream, disappears and reappears a few times, before eventually submerging for long enough that we return, slightly stunned, to our tables.
Later, just as we’re leaving, it pops up again several times, apparently fearless. It is a remarkable, unexpected, unearned glimpse of a notoriously elusive creature. A little flare of joy before the cold to come.
