The Autumn Mist

...and stare with wonder...

The mist rolls across the meadow to the outer edges of the wood and as it moves, it covers, it blankets and it chills. Rabbits busy feeding on the wooded fringes flick their fur before hurrying down into the warm burrows, the sudden cold driving away all thoughts of food - warmth is all they seek now - warmth and comfort.

Overhead the mist swirls at the trees before shifting and slithering into the woods sending tendrils forth like an armed vanguard that touches and envelopes as it pushes forward. The badger that had been snuffling around the fallen horse chestnuts - sniffing for earthworms drawn to the surface by the aroma of decaying husks - feels the cold as it flows over him. His head lifts and his snout twitches at the air as he endeavours to detect any threat. Discerning none, he turns around and shuffles heavily back into the woods, away from the flowing chill, to his sett. 

Onward the fog flows, over the dying nettle beds, the sprawling brambles, their runners reaching and clawing, and on towards the largest chestnut tree in the woods. Here, in its topmost branches an old, wood-wise Tawny Owl blinks down at the wood mice as they busy themselves among the fallen conkers. Later, young boys will pick up these large kernels and stare with wonder at the deep, chestnut sheen of the freshly freed fruit, their pockets will bulge as they run back home to find fathers with bradawls and string and the talk will be of vinegar and heat and other tricks to promote longevity. But for now, the owl looks down benignly at the scurrying mice, having earlier eaten his fill and so he calls to his mate, his 'twoo' and her responsive 'tvit' deadened by the encroaching mist.

Dawn is now spreading her light through the canopy, the unveiling glow at war with the heavy damp air as they battle to claim the day, but for now the mist continues, pushing back the brightness of morning and gliding further into the wood. The dampness spreads and the wrens roosting deep in the bramble are not protected from its embrace and they fluff up their feathers, shifting slightly towards each other as they seek further warmth. The fallow deer reaching for the last leaves of birch as autumn tinges the edges of them with sienna and umber, lowers her head checking on her fawn, this year's baby but now well grown, and her nostrils twitch as the vapours of Autumn lap around her legs, she can now barely see the sulphur tuft mushrooms that kept her olfactory interest for a while before she started on the birch. The mist doesn't concern her, she has fantastic hearing and a wonderful sense of smell and she has heard already the clumping footsteps of the Gamekeeper  at the outer edge of the woods towards the farm.

He is up early to check his coverts and pheasant runs, he knows that a vixen has been checking around the birds for he has found her markings and he can smell her. He's not too concerned, she no longer has young to feed, but he never-the-less wants to be there to make sure she has no way in and no time to try.

...the Gamekeeper at the outer edge of the woods...

He lights a cigarette, leans on his stick and stands listening, waiting for the birds to increase their song into the first light crescendo he has come to know well. First the Robins fast trill, always ending with a sad note; then he hears a blackbird away overhead and closer by the loud tumbling warble of the wren - the smallest of birds with the largest of songs. He has already heard the Tawny Owls - old friends now - and he hears the badger snuffling back to his set, but the deer walk by within 25 feet of him, their soundless passage unmarked by the man.

...lifting wraith-like from the grass...

Then the mist swirls as if disturbed by some interloper, some unseen spirit pushing and shoving its way towards the seething dampness. This trespasser is the breeze and it's instigator, the sun. Rising above the distant trees, the October sunlight has brought warmth and with this rise in temperature has come the pressure that pushes the air inexorably backwards, back into the woods and beyond; back across the fields, the mist lifting wraith-like from the warming grass to dissolve into the early morning sunlight as if it had never been, until finally, the last vestiges of the early morning mist have disappeared entirely and sunlight dominates the morning, the battle is over, today the sun has won.

The Gamekeeper extinguishes his cigarette between thumb and forefinger, placing the butt in his jacket pocket, he takes one more look across the fields into the sun, squinting his eyes from the low glare before turning his back on it and melting into the wood.

...the sun has won...