Towards the end of August our Highland landscape is swathed in a royal blanket. The heather blooms quickly; whole hillsides are repainted in many shades of purple, sometimes almost in the blink of an eye. It is a febrile transformation which stretches into early September. Countless millions of tiny flowers and little bells open and their heavy scent fills the late summer air, when the atmosphere becomes intoxicating and somnolent. Hints of autumn flicker in and out. On some days the light is golden, and pours across the hills like honey; on others, it is sharp, bright and crisply cold. The nights are no longer white and pearl grey, but darken swiftly.
In the croft fields wild flowers are setting seeds. Insects dart about in search of remaining nectar, their wings white, yellow and orange, some spotted or banded, others translucent, fragile and opalescent. Birds, pale breasted but with colourful caps and bright feathers, chatter and sing as they skim along the river banks and through the fields from seed head to seed head. On the few overhead wires, swallows gather. Their nests in the byre have been tidied and in between the chattering pauses they fly, dipping and flashing across the river, swerving over the fields. On these end-of-summer, sometimes warm days, the air shimmers; insects cascade and billow as myriad birds rush to feed.
The land luxuriates in those snatched days of golden and rose-pink warmth and especially in the scented gift of calm evenings which come in colours of hazy blue, crimson, coral, copper and rose. When the sun finally sets there is a sudden firing of turquoise light which glows like an unexpected glaze on pottery taken freshly from the kiln, so that for a few moments it outshines all else, until it too dissipates. But it is a cold light. It warns of change. Autumn is coming.
The heather’s bloom does not last long, two, perhaps three weeks if the weather is kind. But then the flowers turn to dusty gold. Greens and purples give way to bronze and umber. Soon the fields turn egg-custard yellow with sprinklings of cinnamon where terracotta seed heads of sorrel, burnt-umber plantains and ground-ginger rushes still stand proud. In late afternoon sun the machair now looks more Mediterranean, the dying dryness of flower petals and seed heads weaving into the copper and rust of bracken fronds and the waving grasses.
On the mountains, tussocks of deer grass open out like the coat of a red deer hind parted to reveal the speckled paleness of her under-fur. Almost hidden in the heather, red leaves of tormentil trail like bracelets made of rubies. Sphagnum mosses glow in absinthe and claret, tiny plum-coloured berries of bog rosemary resting on the top of their spongy cushions. Along the shore, close to the croft, russet and orange colour the boulders while on the sands strings of mermaid’s tresses mingle with the auburn feathers of dabberlocks and sugar kelp. Above the strand-line, sorrel seed heads stand like tall, iron-rust swords or flames of vermillion.
Then suddenly the swallows have gone. The air is quieter for their departure, but other, more measured voices fill the spaces: robins singing quiet laments of farewell and longing, separation and loss. Even though I know they are really songs of fighting, boundaries and ownership, and I admire their feistiness, to me they are heralds of summer’s flight to the south. Much higher, in the open spaces above the fields, there are new sounds. Geese begin to arrive, windborne squadrons of raiders from the north, honking and gliding in wedges, and then landing in guffawing gaggles in the meadows by the river. Their calls are powerful, evoking further pangs of melancholy, but they do not stay long. Our croft is one service station on their aerial motorway to their food-filled estuarine winter holiday homes. They feed vigorously and rest. Then, at some unseen signal, they lift and rise up over the hills to slowly disappear from view.
In the woodlands the first trees to betray summer are silver birches: splashes of yellow dapple their fine, shimmering greenery. Here and there, long wavering larch tresses begin to change from deep green to orange and ochre. Gradually the azurite, ultramarine and verdigris of late summer is overlain by Byzantine bronze, copper and gold, and even on days of dull, grey cloud, the oranges and deep russet reds glow as if hot. Slowly, steadily leaves begin to fall: silver birch and aspen leaves descend in gentle cascades like confetti, oak, sycamore and beech leaves spin down crunchily. Hedges are stippled with blackberry and rosehip, woodlands with berry and nut. Fungi of varying size, shape and shade surprise us with their sudden appearance, sprouting here, opening there, tucked alongside old fence posts, logs and branches. And each day, as a little more light is lost, trees, shrubs, herbs and grasses defiantly erupt in volcanic colours to compensate for the coming of the dark and cold.
As September progresses, autumn fiercely rushes towards us in the chaos of Atlantic storms. They are heralded at first by high, thin, white ripples of pearlescent clouds with rainbowed iridescent edges. Soon strong westerly winds blow hard and wet, returning again and again and again to strip trees, churning leaves into skirmishing maelstroms of colour. Summer lochs and coastal seas of turquoise and quicksilver are transformed into pulsating gunmetal grey, cobalt and aquamarine, topped by high jumping horses of brilliantine and white. The shore becomes furious then; sand, shells, stones and ocean detritus are hurled about to crash down into high mounds and ridges. Across the machair mists and mellow fruitfulness are torn apart; birds take to the air and are thrown about like charcoal-black scraps of paper burnt on a fire and caught in updraughts. When the rains come to accompany the winds our rivers and burns convulse and carry leaves, twigs and branches down to the sea. The coastal Highlands become a battleground between land, air and water.
But then, above the tumult in the sea and skies, other, wilder voices of war are heard: stags are corralling their harems and defiantly readying themselves for battle. Their roars and bellows ricochet from crag and hill and echo along the riverbanks. It is the rut. Wild, glorious autumn is here.
Annie Worsley, 2016