NATURE Seduced by dusk, drawn by dawn

Seduced by dusk, drawn by dawn 


Country sights and sounds
John Shelley

A dawn rendezvous had proved ultimately unattainable. I blame the weather of the evening before. What little breeze there had been had fallen away to leave the lake like a mirror, the broad flat punctuated only by meandering ribbons of wildfowl, by the light splash of skimming swallows and by the alluring movement of feeding fish.
The air was warm, the sky tinted bronze and streaked with pink and red. Caddis flies congregated around my head, thousands of them, an enthusiastic cloud of half-inch insects. It was, I knew, the prelude to a great wedding where two soul mates would find each other in the midst of that great crowd, then two more and more again, until the whole swarm would be paired. Then away they would go, to the water, the males to soon fall spent, the females to lay their eggs before joining their mates.
The trout would be waiting for the flies just as I waited on for the trout. But as so often happens, the night grew cold. The first to leave the party were the swallows; one moment they were there, the next they were gone to their roost in the reeds, as if they knew proceedings were at an end. My caddis fly friends soon followed the swallows, every one of them, as far as I could tell, still single and unattached. Even the ducks had left the open water and gone elsewhere to feed. There would be no feasting tonight, only gleanings from the waters edge.
Nor trout for me. The lake was silent as I rowed slowly home, the only sound the creaking of oars and light roiling of water beneath the blades. Somewhere in the distance a lost fox cub cried for its mother, a desperate, frightened cry that would bring no response. She has abandoned him, taken him far from home and left him hungry in a thicket to fend for himself.
It was well gone midnight by the time I reached home, the first glimmer of dawn a mere three hours away ... a dawn I had resolved to greet.
At six this morning the day was already bright. I dreamed lightly of my boat, but only briefly, until the words of James Clarence Mangan stirred me to life: ‘Awake, awake, shake off thy dreams! Thou art not what thou wert of yore’. I went for a walk instead.
Dawn or dusk? That problem has become a perennial one. There was a time when both could be embraced, and more than one together, with no telling effect. Not so now.
Dusk has been by far the more accessible of the two, as we are generally still awake when it arrives, whereas dawn requires more than effort, particularly in the height of summer. Is it worth it though?
Of course it is. Early mornings are a world apart from the one with which we are familiar.
Soon after six I sat on the wooden jetty in already warm sunshine and looked over the shallow bay, where dozens of ducks were diving for food. Our resident swans were close by. Their two remaining cygnets followed each other about, concentrating solely on picking dead and dying insects from the water – caenis these, from a night-time hatch of miniature mayfly. (There were originally at least five cygnets again this year – what does happen to them?)
A great-crested grebe slid gracefully beneath the slightest ripple and re-emerged with a fish held crossways in its beak. The grebe was visibly chuffed at its success, the broad frill on its neck standing proud and the bold, red eye gleaming bright. It carried its prize into the reeds, where I imagine its partner to be sitting on a clutch of mud-scribbled eggs.
Grey wagtail and reed bunting hunted along the shore, ignoring the pigeon pair that bathed close by, and a pair of song thrushes led their newly fledged family on a merry dance through the branches of geulder rose and elder, each festooned with pannicles of richly fragrant flowers.
From across the lake came the thin whistle of a kingfisher, that served as a signal for all. A breeze ruffled the water and sent the ducks into the reeds. The young swans left off their breakfast and went to join their parents. The pigeons took themselves into the trees to dry off. Somewhere out in the bay a trout splashed noisily and from a long way off that dread commuter drone began.
Tonight I must sleep; tomorrow I intend to be up at dawn, while I still can.