It was my wife who inspired my last few weeks of village excursions, when she asked what marks the beginning of winter and autumn’s close. Technically it’s not as straightforward as you might expect. “Meteorological winter” opens on 1 December (and runs until 28 February) but “astronomical winter” has to wait until four days before Christmas for its own beginning (and 20 March for its end).
I soon learned that official writ doesn’t really run in our parish. I used the trees as my best index of season and began research on the marsh, where there are a couple of clumps of about 20 mature poplar trees. Throughout summer they are two equal swollen domes of heraldic green, but by 6 November the more isolated patch was stripped out. The other, meanwhile, retained about 50% foliage on that same date, although within a week its half share had largely gone. I estimate that it kept no more than perhaps 10,000 leaves of June’s 5 million. By the third week of November both were definitely cleansed and bare.
Then I inquired of the oaks on the track to the marsh – and they confused the picture completely. One in particular is a tree I photograph repeatedly, to capture its cycling metamorphoses. It is now about typical for the late-November date – that blend of fading green and decayed iron that makes up the quintessential cold flame of autumn oak. What is shocking is to find that a smaller one by its side is still completely immersed in summer green. For this indefatigable plant not even autumn has arrived. Meanwhile, a third mature oak across the dell, despite its enclosed location and perfectly good health, had shed its entire 200,000-leaf load. It is winter personified, but half hidden in the wider copse.
As 1 December approaches, I conclude that our society likes to deal in fixed generalised categories. We call the whole thing a “season” or a “landscape” but, in fact, every small spot has its very specific portion of nature’s total genome. It may obey a wider, inexorable cycle, but each keeps its own hour and knows its own season.
