It’s the spookiest time of the year if you celebrate Halloween, or one of the most important festivals – Samhain – if you’ve an interest in pagan or Celtic lore/history. Samhain traditionally marks the end of summer and the beginning of winter, where darkness overpowers day (in the Northern hemisphere at least) and communities look towards colder nights of enjoying the fruits that summer bore. It’s a time for the warmth of the fire, being indoors, and feasting. Sounds good to me!
If you’re into the spookier stuff, plenty of Halloween events continue on into November, including plenty of ghost tours, ghost hunts, and haunted sleepovers, as I mentioned in my piece about Spooky Places To Visit.
If that’s not your jam, then check out my foodie focused piece about how to cook up an amazing Autumn Feast using ingredients and produce from Northern suppliers.
To be honest, I lean more towards the latter part than the former. Whilst I do love the lighter summer foods, and the brightness of the days, I do find myself loving the “winter” food that we can now enjoy on a colder evening; casserole and dumplings; roast chicken dinner with yorkshire puddings; more pie than can ever be considered a good idea, and plenty more calorific things like that!
The fading of the year needn’t be a time for sadness, thinking that there nothing to look forward until the spring rolls around. Instead, I say we should lean in, and find the beauty in the dark and in the cold. Look out for wildlife that we don’t get to see at other times of the year; take brisk walks through countryside or along the beach, and enjoy the cosy fire (fake or otherwise) when you get home in the evening. Also, statistically, the better telly is on in the winter as well… so there’s always that!
However you’re welcoming in the fading of the year, I urge it to be just that; a welcome. Embrace the chill, and look for the wonder!
As the coldness creeps in and the nights get darker (remember clocks fall back for an hour this Sunday (26th October!)), it can be tempting to think that nature has gone to bed, that the flowers have died back, and she will only reawaken when the spring comes around in a few (and a bit) month’s time. But of course that’s not the case; there is a lot still to see, and unique things that nature shows us throughout the winter months, many of which can’t be seen at any other time of the year.
Throughout the winter, many birds call the British Isles home, with many coming south or west to escape the harsher climes of Scandinavia, Russia, and others coming in from Greenland and Canada. Some of these migrants come in for months on end; arriving in late summer – September-time – and potentially not leaving until April/May, whilst others fly in between October and November, before leaving us in February and March.
There are several species you can look out for in this part of the world as they fly in for the winter; Pink-Footed Geese arrive from Iceland and Norway, Barnacle Geese from the Arctic, you might see Teal ducks at RSPB Leighton Moss (they like wetlands and marshes), and perhaps Wigeons as well. Another prized sighting for a birder is some of our smallest migrant birds; Redwings, heard across the UK from October and Waxwings, which you might only see if there is a poor berry harvest in Scandinavia, and they choose to spend winter in the UK instead as a result.
Aside from our feathered friends, other treasured things to see come Autumn are the brilliant red leaves of Virginia Creeper or Ivy, climbing and crawling its way up the front of a building it scarlet glory; or beautiful beech trees glowing cooper in the bright early November sunlight. Mushrooms are abundant on the forest floor and growing through tree roots and bark. I would urge you to make sure you know exactly what you’re doing if you plan to forage fungi, and seek out an expert guide or handbook for precise information.
Of course there’s plenty of other life to find out and about in the woods and in the fields; throughout October and November you’ll be able to hear the bellows of stags in rut echoing out across the countryside, looking to secure breeding rights for the coming season. If you’re lucky, you might even see two stags go horn-to-horn and battle it out. Please be aware that stags can be more aggressive during this season, even those who are well used to humans (such as park dwelling deer). Keep your distance, and keep dogs on a lead/under control when around deer.
Photo by Charlie Newman
Other furry friends to look out for are wood mice, grey squirrels (busy burying acorns!), and hedgehogs preparing for the winter hibernation (okay, so hedgehogs aren’t fluffy per se, but they are still cute to look at!). This year’s fox kits will be being kicked out of the den by their mothers, so they’ll be lots of slightly-teenage looking foxes around for those who are patient enough to spot them, and badgers will be preparing their burrows for winter. Whilst these black and white denizens of the countryside do not hibernate, they will potential slow down as the months get colder, and spend more time underground, huddled together with the rest of the family!
So there you have it! A short and sweet version of things to look out for this Autumn, with so much beautiful nature still be amazed by. I don’t know about you, but I always get a little sense of wonderment whenever I see a little wood mouse, or a hedgehog, scurrying across the garden wall; a bird (be it a visitor or a resident) chirruping away on a branch that’s losing its leaves… I love this time of year, and love being out and about in the cool crispness, enjoying the freshness of a glorious Autumn.
It’s official; you can smell it in the air, and feel it in the coolness we’ve had this past week, the blackberries have been ripe for a while (we got five freeze-able boxes last week!), and the trees are just beginning to show their golden glow…
I love this time of the year… the heat of the summer is coming to a close (and this year we have had eight official heatwaves… which is a whole ‘nother issue that I really don’t want to think about it!), although we do sometimes get an Indian summer in September, and that feels like the last burst of summer before autumn officially draws in. Side story, a couple of years ago I was in York for my 30th birthday, and the whole weekend it was 28-31 degrees in the second week of September… that was warm. It made for a wonderful weekend, but it was a little bit weird for it to be that temperature in northern England in September!
But with the start of Autumn, people start looking to the cooler months, Halloween (if you like to celebrate spooky season), cosy jumpers, and homemade hearty soups. I’m definitely looking forward to stews and casseroles cooked in the slow cooker again, which have just felt too hot and heavy to eat throughout the summer. And, with the end of summer, it’s not like we going to run out of stuff to do – the calendar is absolutely packed for September, with plenty more to look forward to in the month’s following. I’ll be doing calendars for October, November, and December as well, pulling out the best of what’s happening in the local area for the rest of the year. If you’d like to keep up with what’s happening, sign-up for free to receive a weekly newsletter.
This time of the year has always been important throughout history. In the Northern Hemisphere it’s the time of the harvest and preparation, and the time to give thanks (whatever that means for different cultures) for food and sustenance before the winter comes in. In Celtic culture deities such as Danu and Lugh were honoured at the time of the harvest, with even more celebrations towards the traditional festival of Samhain, which has a heavy focus on the cyclical nature of life and death, and the transitions between worlds in different religions and cultures. For the Romans, the beginning of Autumn and the harvest brought holidays and festivals honouring the goddess Ceres (Goddess of the harvest), and Pomona (Goddess of fruit trees), amongst others. At the end of the season, the Romans celebrated the festival of Saturnalia, honouring Saturn, the God of time and renewal.
As for me, I’m looking forward to cooler days spent by the sea in Arnside, Silverdale, or Grange-Over-Sands, breathing in the crisp Autumn air. I love getting my jackets back out of the wardrobe, to not worry about overheating in my jeans or my leather trousers, and being able to wear my boots again. Autumn hits different to winter in this respect, because I’m not a huge fan of having to bundle up every time I step outside, but we haven’t reached that point yet.
And yes, sure, it rains more in autumn than it does in the summer, especially in the North-West. It comes with the territory… there’s a saying in Manchester that “if you can’t see the Pennines, it’s raining; and if you can, it’s going to rain,” which definitely has more than a grain of truth to it! Aside from anything else, after the spring and summer we’ve just had, we need the rain – our reservoirs are seriously low, and farmers have been saying that they’re on track to lose about 30% of their vegetable crop due to lack of water. So, in that vein I’d like to invite people to enjoy the rain. Of course, too much rain can be catastrophic, that’s not what I’m saying or trying to invite, I’m just talking about your typical rainy day. Find a way to enjoy it. Remember what it was like when you were a child and you’d splash in puddles and catch raindrops on your tongue, find things to do that don’t require going outside (there’s plenty of them!), and if it’s really not your thing, think about how much cosier the inside of your house or room is when it’s raining outside… take that nap with zero guilt because you can’t go out anyway. Win, win as far as I’m concerned!
Photo by Brigette Tohm
What are you looking forward to the most as the cooler months roll in? Let me know, or come say hi on Instagram or TikTok (@thenorthishlass)! I’d love to hear from you…
