At last we've had a proper autumn day here. The tree colours have been pretty good for a week or so, but because of the rain the fallen leaves on the ground have been quickly turning to mush.
Dry leaves to scuff your feet through is part of the autumn experience, isn't it? But over the last few days the leaves have been drying out nicely and the scuff factor is finally on the up.
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| Field maple |
Back working on the hedges this afternoon I've been up a ladder again and that's given me the chance to do a bit of a leaf fall audit. The ash leaves are mostly gone already, stripped off the branches by the wind before their green had faded to yellow.
Across the valley the oaks still have their leaves in place and but they're now a rusty, red-brown. My hedges are mostly blackthorn and its leaves are now a striking, sun-catching lemon yellow that's almost as bright as the few field maples I put into the gaps a winter or two ago.
Ever get the feeling you're being watched? At last some decent weather here and this morning I've been up a ladder working on the hedge between us and the road.
Quite a long way up a ladder. Because we're on a hillside it takes the the ladder legs at full extension to get to grips with the top of the hedge and the legs have to be standing on a raised hedge bank.
So, I'm almost at jackdaw level; looking back towards the house I'm about where the gutter is. And as I've been working away with saw and secateurs I've been able to watch jackdaws coming and going.
They're are always around, or seem to be - on our chimney, our nextdoor neighbour's chimney or on the chimneys of one of the houses across the road.
This year they started to build a nest in our chimney, but I spotted one of the birds coming and going with sticks and got the chimney sweep in to put a new mesh cover on the chimney pot. When the chimney was swept enough sticks came out to fill a carrier bag.
There seems to be a lot going on in the jackdaw community just now. They're spending a lot of time on and around the chimneys that were used as nesting sites this year and 'speaking' to one another all the while.
One of these 'conversations' got very heated this morning and the two birds ended up fighting. Locked together in a pecking match the combatants fell together off the chimney and slid down the roof slates, still fighting.
It was only when they reached the gutter that they broke off from the fight. One of the two flew away, while the other sat for a moment looking a little shaken up.
Breeding pairs are the bedrock of jackdaw society. They pair up and, if all goes well, stay paired for life. This year's youngsters should be establishing these pair bonds around now, which is probably what all the jackdaw chat in our street is about today.
I've only myself to blame. I was given nine months to write the book I'm working on at the moment and should have paced things better.
I didn't, so it has become something of a scramble. It will get done, but only just (hope my publisher doesn't stumble on this blog...) What I hadn't been expecting was just how good the summer was going to be, and when the weather is as good as it was in July and early August the last thing you want to do is be in front of a computer, is it?
As a result things have been left undone. The garden has become very unkempt, the window frames didn't get painted and this blog has been left fallow.
But anyway, it was an incredible summer. I've dropped in here on my way to the kitchen to cook the corn cob I've just picked for my lunch. Yes, summer 2013 has taught me that I can grow sweetcorn in north Pembrokeshire.
All the effort I've put in over the last few years, has been wasted. And this year seed rotted in the chilly ground, but the plants I started under glass did keep going through a less-than-promising spring.
And they've loved the heat, which means I've a nice little crop of corn to enjoy this autumn. Off to lunch - and, promise to self, more posts.
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| Photo: RSPB/Jim Nesbit |
I love this picture. It came to me today on a emailed press release from the RSPB and made me smile. The golf bag had been left unused in a garage, which had offered the robins the opportunity to move in.
They were left in peace and have raised five young apparently. Of course, press realeases usually have a message and this one was 'selling' the RSPB's 'Giving Nature a Home' campaign.
It has the target of signing up a million people to making wildlife-friendly improvements to their garden, like adding birdboxes, building log piles and giving the lawn mower a rest. I've signed up to convert my front lawn to a wildflower meadow.
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| Photo: vogelart.info |
It feels a little like our summer has been
and gone here in Pembrokeshire. This week has been grey and dull. So, it’s a
little depressing to know that summer’s birds are already beginning to head
south.
The BTO’s cuckoo tracking project is
reporting on the progress of their radio tagged birds and apparently some have
already crossed to Europe. The first to go was a bird they have called Sussex,
which left England for France last week.
Since then more have gone and as of
yesterday five of the 13 cuckoos had left the UK. They’ve gone to Belgium,
France and Germany, while Sussex is now 100 miles or so from Rome. You can
follow their progress on the BTO website here.
All of a sudden our garage swallows are out and about. Today they've spent hours coming and going, resting when the rains is at its worst and then heading back out over the valley. They seem to have got the hang of flying with no trouble at all and are now concentrating on sharpening up their skills. This afternoon that seems to have involved flying around and around in circles just outside the garage door seemingly just for the fun of it.
Things are happening with our swallow neighbours. When I went into the garage to straighten out the dust sheets under the nest this morning I could see tail feathers sticking out of the nest up in the roof.
Getting the dust sheet in just the right place makes sense. There's hardly anything on it yet, but I know from previous years that the poo build-up will be huge later in the season.
Half an hour later I wondered back into the garage and noticed something new right in the middle of the sheet - a scrap of egg shell. Hatching has started.
The shell is so incredibly thin that it's a wonder that it can bear the weight of the incubating adult. As I studied it I could hear the small, tinny calls of that first nestling and wondered how many brothers and sister will join it up there in their mud nest as time goes on.
However many in the brood, it means that the swallow pair now have their work cut out. No more time for sitting around in that cherry tree.
