Colour scene

What a difference a month makes. Way back in (warm, dry) October I took this picture of my walnut tree with the idea that I was going to post it here. The yellow of the leaves was so intense - somewhere between lemon or butter.
The tree is a slow-grower, but is coming along. I can't remember exactly when it went in, but it was probably the winter of 2002/3. More than 10 years ago anyway, and what was a stick is now two hand-spans around at the base.
Since the walnut picture was taken there have been weeks of rain and wind, and I never got around to taking the other leaf-colour pictures I'd intended to post with the walnut ones. Today was brighter though, so I went out with the camera.
The walnut is now completely stripped and bare, and most of the ash trees are too. But where it's more sheltered in the hedge some leaves are hanging on in there.
My watched tree, an oak sapling, is green and gold. The beeches that I used to plug a gap have grown quite well and their leaves are now crisp and brown, but for me its the field maples that are the most eye-catching.

Autumn blues

This sounds like the November morning blues, because it should start 'got up this morning'. I did, and when I drew the curtains the garden seemed to be full of birds.
Which is good, but also says winter is on the way. Lots of the activity was focused on the hawthorn hedge close to the house, where blackbirds and a mistle thrush were busy breakfasting on berries. 
Taking a closer look I spotted my first redwing of the season too. It was gulping down the shiny berries (are they called haws?) whole.
While I was watching it got through three one after another. Then it sat watching the world go by, presumably while all that fruit settled. Again this year the hawthorns are heavy with berries. The leaves are mostly gone now and from a distance the branches look red where the sun catches them.
Going around the garden this afternoon I have been feeling a bit blue though. When I picked my 'watched' tree back in spring I hadn't even heard of ash dieback; plenty of other tree-killers (and warnings about the damage they could do), but not ash dieback.
Now we know too much. We have so many ashes here that it is hard to imagine the landscape without them - they are 'the' Cych valley tree.
My watched tree is part of the our boundary hedge that is mostly ash. It has been cut and re-grown so many times that its base is so thick I couldn't get my arms around it.
It must have been there for at least as long as the house, which dates back to the 1880s, and possibly longer. Sad to think its days could now be numbered.   

Leaf watch

Ash

When does autumn start to happen? Apparently, it's officially the autumn equinox - September 22.

But isn't it more about what's happening in the garden and further afield - dew on spider's webs, swallows checking out and  acorns under foot. And leaves turning, of course.

I spent some time today in the garden looking for leaf colour changes and, as yet, not much is going on. Leaves on the grapevine are yellowing fast, but - sadly - the bunches of grapes don't show any sign of ripening.

Vine

But in the hedge the willow, blackthorn, hawthorn and ash are all still pretty much as they have been all summer. My watched tree, an ash, has leaves that are beginning to go crispy around the edges, but only a few.

The only native tree that is beginning to change colour is elder, which now has lots of lemon yellow leaves in among the green ones. It's also one of the first of the hedgerow trees to come into leaf, so I reckon it rates as the leader of the pack.

Elder

New leaf

Some sunshine and a weekend, remarkable... It was good to get out and catch up on the lawn-mowing and spend some time seeing what's going on out there.

Finally something is happening with my "watched" tree. It's actually more a watched hedge as it happens, a big, mishapen old ash down by the compost heap.

It's surrounded by plant growth, but until the last day or two has shown no sign of responding to spring itself. That's now changing as, at last, buds are bursting.

The great thing about taking such a close interest in just one tree is that you do look so much closer than you'd normally do. So, I was a little surprised to see how buds are at different growth stages at different points on the tree.

Close to the trunk in the shadier part of the hedge the buds are only just beginning to swell, but further out at the tips of the branches new leaves are forming. For now the foot of the hedge in bathed in sunshine, but as the ash canopy forms overheard it's all going to be lost to shade.

Just now there's a bank of Red Campion, that catches the morning sun and is attracting insects. There are lots of bees and some butterflies too - including this green-veined white.  

Before I went to find the camera to take these photos I could hear the creaky-gate call of a young robin somewhere close by. One of its parents kept an eye on me from a distance.

It took some time looking into a tangle of brambles to spot it spot the newly-fledged youngster perched in a little pool of sunlight. Of course it goes without saying that by the time I was back with my camera it was nowhere to be seen.