Wild Hares and Hummingbirds (19 page)

Once eels were so common in these parts that, according to the Domesday Book, they were used to pay the rent. Even in my lifetime, villagers recall seeing hundreds of eels thrashing around in farm pools during thundery weather, desperate for oxygen; or watching them cross over the land, slithering over muddy fields on their way from one watercourse to another.

But in the past twenty years, the numbers of elvers coming upstream has plummeted. No one knows exactly why: it could be that climate change has caused a shift in the ocean currents; or perhaps barriers installed to control flooding are blocking their way. One sure reason for the decline is the illegal poaching of elvers, which are caught in their tens of thousands, and sold as a delicacy to the Asian market at more than £200 a pound. So eels are no longer the abundant creature they once were; and if the decline continues, they may soon disappear from our rivers.

Dennis tells us stories of the old days, when half a dozen people would gather along this very stretch of riverbank, catching eel after eel; sometimes well over a hundredweight in a single night. He would take them home, skin them and soak them overnight in brine, and in the morning fry them up with butcher’s bacon: ‘All fat – not a bit of lean!’ The neighbours enjoyed the bounty too: Dennis would give away half the eels, and feast on the rest
for
days afterwards. As he speaks, that balance between effort and reward makes perfect sense.

Though not, sadly, this time. At one in the morning, we call it a night. The eel I caught is still the only one in the tub: a slender, pale creature, perhaps one foot long, and weighing 4 or 5 ounces. Nevertheless, it has been a privilege to take part in this ancient rural custom, and to hear how it was once part and parcel of seasonal life here on the levels. And as Dennis sagely notes, ‘Fishing isn’t about catching. If it were about catching, it’d be called “catching”, not “fishing”.’

We let the eel go, and it slithers away into the murky waters, out of sight.

O
THER CREATURES OF
the night are less elusive, though just as enigmatic as the eel. There are roughly 2,500 different kinds of moths in Britain, compared with fewer than 60 species of butterfly. Yet although they are here in their millions, during the long summer days they are virtually invisible. Our lives only occasionally intersect, when coincidences in time and space collude to bring us together.

On warm summer nights, as I drive home after dark, I see them reflected in my headlights as they flutter around the back lanes of the parish. Early in the mornings, my daughter Daisy brings me one clasped in her hands,
caught
as it tried to escape through the bathroom window. And on hot summer Sunday afternoons as I push the lawnmower over the lush grass, they shoot out from beneath its blades, temporarily evicted from their home.

To enter the mysterious world of moths, and reveal their bizarre beauty, we must resort to trickery. So at dusk, on a warm, overcast June evening, I set the trap. This is a large, circular, black plastic tub, with a round hole at the centre of its lid, onto which a mercury vapour bulb is mounted. When illuminated, this acts like a magnet for every moth in the area, drawing them inexorably in to investigate this unexpected source of light.

The theory behind the trap is a simple one. Moths use the moon to navigate, so when they encounter this incredibly bright light, they use it to orient themselves. But because the light is only a few yards away – compared with roughly 250,000 miles from my garden to the moon – they fly around it in rapidly decreasing circles, until they reach the centre of the trap.

The bulb is bright but cool, so they avoid being fried as they come into contact with its surface. After bumping into it they drop down, and slide effortlessly down plastic chutes into the tub, unable to escape. There is no need for food: most adult moths never feed anyway, as their caterpillars have done enough eating for one lifetime. So they simply hide away among the egg cartons I have placed there for that very purpose, and wait until morning.

As I turn the light on, and watch as its dull, purplish
glow
begins to strengthen, I am immediately aware of the presence of moths. The ubiquitous large yellow underwings bash into me as they fly headlong towards the trap. A buff ermine – furry, creamy-yellow, with delicate strokes of black – lands momentarily on my leg, before it too launches itself in the direction of the light. And all over the lawn, tiny, wraith-like grass moths begin their nocturnal adventures.

Another, larger moth is fluttering over the lawn, ignoring the attractions of the trap. Like a helicopter hovering above a rainforest, it moves steadily up and down across the same patch of grass, in a rhythmic, purposeful movement. It is a ghost swift, and of all our moths I think it the most bewitching. This is a male: an inch long and pure white in colour. In the twilight the whiteness makes him look larger than he is; his wings fluttering in an incessant blur, creating a haunting image on my retina.

His behaviour may appear odd, but he is doing it for a reason. The female, larger and yellower than the male, is hiding somewhere in the long grass below, giving off a pheromone that drives the male into this frenzied state. So as darkness falls, he swings to and fro like a pendulum, desperately seeking her out, until eventually she puts him out of his misery by reaching up to pull him down into her grassy lair to mate.

But as I watch the ghost swift swing to and fro over the lawn, its nocturnal perambulations equal in beauty and complexity to any of nature’s courtship rituals, I forget
about
any scientific explanation for this bizarre behaviour, and simply enjoy the show.

N
EXT MORNING, THE
ghost swift has vanished, but the trap is filled with a profusion of his relatives. Opening a moth trap is the bug-hunters’ equivalent of Christmas morning, except that all your presents are trying to escape. The trick is to catch as many of the interesting moths as possible, temporarily incarcerating them in small, plastic containers in order to get a good view; and, if possible, identify them. I am always struck by their sheer variety: from tiny ‘micros’, so small and obscure I don’t even try to give them a name, to huge hawkmoths, the most prized members of this panoply of shape, form and colour.

The evocative names of these moths link us directly with the naturalists who chose them. Take the selection I have before me on this bright June morning: blood vein, mottled beauty, light emerald, white ermine, buff ermine, heart and dart, flame shoulder, common wainscot, poplar grey, angle shades, marbled minor, burnished brass, ruby tiger, riband wave and straw dot.

What wonderful, imaginative, utterly bizarre names. Names bestowed by eccentric Victorian naturalists, who sought out their quarry with net, lamp and chloroform, pinning them to a board, then hiding them away in polished oak cabinets for later generations to open in
wonder
. Names I now hear on my children’s lips, as they gleefully point out a familiar visitor, or question me about the identity of a new one.

Just like birds, some of these moths are residents, living the whole of their brief lives within the borders of the parish. Others, like the silver Y, are migrants, flying here all the way from Spain each summer. The silver Y is named after the distinctive Y-shaped marking on its wings; also reflected in its scientific name,
Autographa gamma
.

One of the objects in the trap doesn’t, at first sight, resemble a living creature at all. Just over an inch long, silvery-grey in colour, it looks exactly like the twig of a silver birch; roughly snapped off at one end and neatly cut with a sharp penknife at the other, to reveal clean, bright, yellowish-buff wood.

Then this inanimate object does something dazzling. It opens its wings, revealing that it isn’t a twig at all, but a moth: the buff-tip. The buff-tip is one of the most remarkable creatures I am ever likely to see in my garden. Not because it is rare – there are three in the trap this morning – but because it is the finest example I have ever seen of animal camouflage. The shades and markings exactly mimic a birch twig, even down to the rough silvery film on the surface. When it closes its wings, only two antennae, poking unobtrusively out of the narrow end, reveal that it is alive at all. It makes the chameleon look like a rank amateur.

The other extraordinary moth in this morning’s
selection
sports one of the loveliest combinations of colour I have ever seen in nature, or indeed anywhere else. About 1½ inches long and 2 inches across, its body and wings are a deep olive-green with a yellowish tinge, streaked with a lurid salmon-pink, as if it has been coloured with a fluorescent highlighter pen. If this combination of colour and design appeared on the Paris catwalk, you wouldn’t be at all surprised.

It is an elephant hawkmoth, so named not because it resembles an elephant, which it doesn’t, but because its larva does. About 3 inches long, the caterpillar sports a proboscis like an elephant’s trunk, which it waves at its enemies to confuse and frighten them. Sadly these, and other large and noticeable hawkmoth caterpillars, are often killed by fearful householders, who remain ignorant of the beauty that lies within, ready to emerge once the creature has pupated.

I allow this stunning vision to crawl onto my hand, where it pauses for a moment, before heading off low across the garden on whirring wings. It is seeking out a clump of fuchsias, where it will hang for the rest of the day, its gaudy colours the perfect camouflage against this flamboyant flower. Then, along with the hundred or so moths I have released, and the many millions I failed to catch, it will emerge at dusk, to patrol the lanes, gardens and flower beds of the parish until dawn breaks once again.

M
OST YEARS, SOMETIME
between late April and the middle of June, the weather systems above the British Isles shuffle around the skies to create the pattern we are all hoping for: a building ridge of high pressure, bringing southerly breezes, warm air and clear skies.

In the early afternoons, the temperatures push into the low 20s, though with cloudless skies at night it can still be quite chilly at dawn. In the evenings, though, a residue of the day’s heat still remains. So as the evening star, the planet Venus, rises in the darkening sky over Mill Batch Farm, there is just enough warmth to bring the moths out to feed, and with them, their predators: pipistrelle bats.

Our smallest bat, and by weight our smallest mammal, the pipistrelle is a wonder. Barely the length of my thumb-joint, and weighing less than a sixth of an ounce – about the same as a two-pence coin – this is the bat we usually catch a glimpse of on spring and summer evenings, fluttering in the gloaming as it hunts down flying insects. Found throughout the UK, it can be seen in suburbs, towns and gardens, as well as rural areas such as our parish.

Pipistrelles are something of a paradox: they are common, and yet, like all our bat species, can be very hard to see. In early spring, about two million individuals emerge from their winter hibernation in trees and buildings, to flutter across our evening skies. But sadly, there aren’t as many as there used to be. Just as many insect-eating birds have declined in the past few decades, so these tiny bats have also seen a fall in numbers. It’s the old, familiar story:
a
combination of the overuse of agricultural chemicals, habitat loss and, just like garden birds, the hunting skills of that ubiquitous but alien creature, the domestic cat.