Foxglove Nov 4 2009

The air has a distinct chill to it now: proper autumn. Hounds trot with their sterns up, and horses clink their bit-rings, the crunch and clop of equine feet our music to end the day, as the ringing cry of the pack was our theme earlier. Fading light catches hounds' eyes and makes them glow.

Times like this make one think back to earlier times, decades of them, where hounds and horses were central to our theme.

Wet autumns where the land lay heavy, dry autumns where the scent was frustratingly patchy, frosty autumns where the rank undergrowth was knocked back early by the weather, allowing scent to flow.

This autumn's challenge is the hard ground, unforgiving to all who cross it and demanding such dedication in keeping horses and hounds sound and able to work.

Recent rain has helped only a little, for as much has run off the land as has done good to it, but it is better than nothing.

And hunting shines through it all, because hunting has seen it all before, and will see it all again. There is pride in that continuity.

Since the clocks changing, nightfall comes early, but in common with those whose work is chiefly out of doors and with animals, light in the mornings has far more value than light in the evenings.

Even so, tonight's final tasks will be done in the half-dark to start with, and full night by the end. We are luckier than the generations before us, who had little in the way of artificial light to help them, and risked fire in the stables from oil-lamps and candles.

Similarly, so much has been created now in the way of horse accoutrements that make our lives and theirs easier and more comfortable.

The old ways are not often the best now, though it was useful to have learned them even if purely to appreciate what we have now. Such are my thoughts as I walk behind the last few riders making their way to their lorries, which save them from hacking home in the dark, as I had done so many times in my youth.

It would be far too dangerous to do so now, though from time to time a few have been caught out by the sunset and had to remove their dark jackets and ride in their shirts, hoping that the paler garment would show up more.

Many of us carry fluorescent tabards in our pockets or saddle-cases now, which fold down to a small package and weigh next to nothing.

These and mobile telephones have replaced the traditional 'knife, a shilling and a piece of string' though the first and last are still useful.

Steam from the horses' bodies blends with vapour from their nostrils as they reach their transport.

The whipper-in and huntsman count their hounds onto the lorry, and I turn for home. A final flash of gold beribbons the sky, and there silhouetted black on it, like a totem, is a kestrel, hovering in the fading light. For him to live, something must die, in the last of the day. I wish him good hunting.