Autumn to be early as nature charges through seasons

After an early spring and summer, the year is now racing towards autumn ahead of schedule, conservationists have said.
Autumn colours at the Yorkshire Arboretum at Castle Howard.
Picture by Gerard Binks.Autumn colours at the Yorkshire Arboretum at Castle Howard.
Picture by Gerard Binks.
Autumn colours at the Yorkshire Arboretum at Castle Howard. Picture by Gerard Binks.

As the year reached the half-way mark, the National Trust said wildlife seemed to have come through the wettest and stormiest winter on record and nature had hurtled “helter-skelter” through the seasons since.

Now signs of autumn are already in the hedgerows and woods, National Trust naturalist Matthew Oates said.

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“Looking at this year, where does it want to be? It raged its way through winter, then we went into an incredibly early spring, and then it rushed helter-skelter through spring without stopping for breath,” he said.

A hundred years ago at midsummer, Edward Thomas had the inspiration for his famous poem Adlestrop, hearing a blackbird singing while his train stopped at the Gloucestershire village.

But Mr Oates said that this year, blackbirds had already stopped singing for the season by midsummer.

“We’re ahead still, remarkably ahead; birds have largely stopped singing, a lot of butterflies are very early and are still coming out early,” he said, pointing 
to early arrivals of high 
summer butterflies including chalk hill blues and purple emperors.

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And he said: “There are really strong signs of autumn already here, like the beech nuts. It’s an amazing beech mast year and the nuts are incredibly well developed.”

He also said sycamore seeds were well developed and hawthorn berries – and even holly berries – were already red.

The early spring and summer seemed to have benefited more species than had been hit, he said.

“If we go back to that 
winter, it was the wettest, stormiest, wildest winter, and very stressful for every living thing, including us, but wildlife seems to have come through it incredibly well.”