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Seasonal spectacles Local naturalist and author Duncan Poyser welcomes the wonders of autumn to our region
whenever we focus our senses upon the natural world and notice seasonal change. The Cambridgeshire naturalist Leonard Jenyns, curate of Swaffham Bulbeck for 22 years from 1827, made meticulous and systematic notes on climate and seasonal change. An exceptional observer, he was first choice for ship’s naturalist aboard HMS Beagle in 1831, but ill health and parish commitments led him to turn down the offer. He suggested that his friend, Charles Darwin, might be considered instead and the rest, as they say, is history. Jenyns’ detailed notes have been suitably archived and provide a valuable baseline, allowing for comparison with current data to evidence significant phenological shifts – the effect of climatic warming – over centuries. We now experience a shortened or ‘squeezed’ winter period, with the vestiges of autumn lingering later and the markers of spring appearing earlier than those recorded by Jenyns 200 years ago.
n 1913, The Times published a letter from Richard Lydekker, a keen naturalist and keeper of palaeontology at the British Museum, who reported hearing a cuckoo in Hertfordshire on the exceptionally early date of 4 February. A week later, he wrote again confessing his mistake – he had discovered that a labourer working nearby had the
gift of producing a note-perfect rendition of the cuckoo’s call. The pair of letters amused readers of the paper so much that they started to write in when they heard their first cuckoo of the year, and The Times continues to notify the world of this annual event through its letters page. Phenology is the study of biological cycles in plants and animals and how these are influenced by seasonal and climatic changes. It’s a tricky, but important, area of study that we all engage with
08 OCTOBER 2026 CAMBSEDITION.CO.UK
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