Exmoor

In the warmest weather the sheep have been seeking the shade of the hedges or have lain spreadeagled in the cool of ditches. Cross-country walking is exhausting in these temperatures and for our annual whortleberry pick we choose a site partially shaded by some weedy conifers not far from a road.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest European bilberry/whortleberry (Vaccinium myrtillus). Photograph: Arterra Picture Library/Alamy Stock Photo

Punnets of “werts” are fetching half a crown in Barnstaple market. Picking them demands patience, a sharp eye and dexterity of hand. We picked enough to fill four bottling jars in as many hours. I asked myself if the time had not come when it would be better to open tins of fruit in the winter instead of going through this laborious process. But, because of the unique flavour of werts, I decided that I would probably always put aside a day a year in order to pick them. Besides, it was perfect at the edge of the conifers; the whortleberry plants had grown strongly but here and there were patches of sward and detritus from the trees. Here one could picnic and look out through the frame provided by the trees over a colourful stretch of unkempt moorland. It had isolated groups of trees interspersed with lower growth; a place for wild bees, ants, saw-flies and, on the whortleberry plants, the plump green bodies of the caterpillars of Emperor moths. And now, as so often in August in the South-west, the heat and humidity gives place to torrential rain. The night sky of Exmoor flashes white and daylight finds the streams swollen.

Jon Henley on the bilberry Read more