It seems as if autumn swept in over just a few days and now the country is transformed. Here are a few things I've noticed recently.
- The feeders are smothered in Goldfinches and Greenfinches.
- Magpies and Jays are much in evidence. Jays in particular always seem to suddenly appear at this time of year, though you had hardly seen them at all for the other months. I've blogged about this before. Twice.
- The trees are showing their autumn colours – some of them are golden yellow already, but the full display is yet to be seen.
- It's raining. A lot.
- Fruit and veg crops didn't fare well with the topsy turvy weather over the year. I read that a famous English vineyard has had to ditch the entire year's grape harvest as it's just no good.
- The garden spiders have mostly had their fun and there aren't quite so many webs to walk into of a morning.
I so rarely glimpse a Jay; that shot is rather good.
We haven’t had that much rain at all, oddly.
I listened to someone on the radio this morning who said that it was only Nyetimber that had scrapped their harvest and that other vineyards had very good quality grapes.
Well my own grape harvest was useless too – just two ‘bunches’. The vine was bigger than the year before (being fairly young) but fewer grapes.
I’ve been looking for Sloes and Crab Apples but neither are to be found, Elderberries just turning black and few of them too. The wind and rain have a lot to answer for this year.