Autumn: The Working Season in Full Swing

There is no better time to be out in the British countryside. The hedgerows are heavy with sloes and haws, the light comes in low and golden across the stubble, and the lanes smell of damp leaves and woodsmoke. It is also, however, the busiest and most pressured time of year for the people who actually work that land. Harvest is running late or being rushed before the rain, winter wheat is going in, livestock are being moved to fresh grazing, and every hour of daylight counts.

None of that needs to spoil a good walk. With a little knowledge and a few good habits, you can enjoy everything autumn has to offer while making life easier rather than harder for the farmers whose land you are crossing. The guidance below is simple, but it matters more in October than at any other time of year.

Leave Every Gate Exactly as You Found It

Gates are the single biggest source of friction between walkers and farmers, and the fix takes two seconds. The rule is straightforward: leave gates as you find them. If a gate is closed, close it behind you. If it is tied open, leave it open. A gate that is shut is usually holding something in, and it is rarely just an empty field on the other side.

A few practical points worth remembering:

• Lift the latch properly rather than forcing it, and check the gate has actually caught before you walk away.
• Climb gates and stiles only where there is a marked crossing. Climbing a gate and hanging your weight on the hinge can warp it, and a gate that does not shut properly is worse than no gate at all.
• If you find a gate broken or jammed, mention it to the landowner or report it to the local highway authority's rights of way team, rather than leaving it wedged with a stick.
• Take your time with children and dogs at gates. A moment of fumbling is how livestock get out onto the lane and into the road.

Keep to the Marked Path

Public footpaths, bridleways and byways exist so that you can cross working land safely and legally. They are not suggestions. In autumn, the line of a path is often invisible because a crop is standing or the field has just been drilled, so follow the waymarkers, the map and the trodden line rather than the shortest route to the gate you can see.

Walking the field margin, or the headland strip the farmer leaves at the edge of a crop, is nearly always the right thing to do. Cutting diagonally across a field of winter wheat or a standing maize crop flattens plants that will not recover, and it compacts wet soil. After heavy rain, stay on the driest line you can find and resist the urge to widen a muddy path into a three-metre bog. If a path is genuinely impassable because of a crop, report it rather than ploughing through.

Dogs: Under Control, Every Single Time

Autumn grazing means sheep and cattle are often on fields crossed by footpaths, and this is the point at which a normally well-behaved dog can become a serious problem. Livestock see a running dog as a predator. A chase that lasts thirty seconds can cause a ewe to abort, lambs to be separated and injured, or cattle to panic through a fence.

• Put your dog on a short lead around livestock, or where signs ask you to. Two metres is the sensible maximum; a retractable lead stretching across a field is not control.
• If cattle approach or chase, let go of the lead. A dog that can run free will usually outpace them, and you are safer apart.
• Never let a dog worry livestock. It is an offence, and farmers are within their rights to take serious action to protect their animals.
• Bag dog mess and take it home if there is no bin. It spreads neospora, which causes abortion in cattle, and it is not a harmless natural fertiliser.
• Keep dogs out of field margins and hedgerows in autumn, where ground-nesting birds, young hares and small mammals are sheltering.

Hands Off Machinery, Crops and Fences

A combine harvester, a grain trailer or a tractor with a bale spike is a working machine worth more than most houses, and it is often parked in a gateway with the keys nowhere near it. Do not climb on it, do not let children play on it, and do not squeeze past it if the driver is manoeuvring. Machinery has blind spots, and a person on foot loses every time.

The same courtesy applies to growing crops, orchards, feed troughs and bales. Scrumping an apple from a commercial orchard or helping yourself to a few cobs is theft, not a charming rural tradition. Climbing a fence to cross a field damages wire and strains posts. If a fence, sign or footbridge is broken, note the location and report it — that is far more use than a makeshift repair.

Small Courtesies That Go a Long Way

A few habits cost nothing and make you the kind of visitor the countryside welcomes back. Park considerately in passing places and never block a field gateway or farm track. Drive slowly on narrow lanes, and give tractors and horse riders plenty of room. A nod, a wave or a brief hello makes a real difference; farmers notice which walkers make an effort and which do not.

Carry out everything you carry in. Take a torch for those earlier dusks, wear boots that cope with wet clay, and know that a wet walk is far more enjoyable when you know you have left everything exactly as you found it. Respect is not a restriction on a good autumn ramble — it is what keeps the footpaths, gates and goodwill open for all of us, season after season.