The Eternal Season by Stephen Rutt;

Author:Stephen Rutt;
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781783965748
Publisher: Lightning Source Inc. (Tier 1)

6

Silence Descends

High summer is a time of silencing. Individual by individual, species by species; the task of territory holding and finding a mate has been completed. Feathers are worn and in need of moulting, young are in need of feeding, the hot sun beats down on opaque leaves and birds move to the middle of bushes, deep in the cover or high in the tree canopy. Each species falls quiet or irregular. The exuberance of life before has become almost distracted, as if July is a season within a season: the time between the singing and the pre-migration activity, when birds seem to vanish. It is an avian solstice, when the old bird of spring gets ready to renew itself, to become the bird of autumn, ready to head south.

It is the worst month for birding and my attentions turn to other fields of natural history. But in town there is still birdlife to be seen; while I am walking the streets of Dumfries and the backways on its periphery, the flitting swallows and house martins hold my attention, the constant motion hypnotic, a reminder of the energy that came before the summer pause.

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