I don't know how its come to this but apparently its October tomorrow! I don't know where the summer went but now its autumn?!?
The signs are all there: the geese skeins flying over, tree colours changing to oranges and reds and the cold, but sunny and clear crispness of an apple morning [when the first breath of outside air is fresh with a slight tang, like the first bite of a cox orange pippin apple].
Started this month [September] with a rather long overdue tackling of the bushes along the back wall. I'm a fan of having lots of foliage, but a) this hadn't been prunned since we moved in; and b) rubbish from the care home bins [on the otherside of the wall] often blow into them - looking terrible and not being great for the wildlife. It was a suprisingly big job which produced several bins worth of branching and wouldn't have been possible without our fabulous neighbours - thanks guys!
Spot the difference between the before and after pictures below!
[yes I know the small stool wandered off in the second photo]
For the first summer since we've moved in you can actually see the back wall! I've been clearing the area behind the apple tree, so we can actually make use of the area of garden that gets sun all year round.
During a break in the prunning, this little [Speckled Wood Pararge aegeria] butterfly (left) materialised - after having been seen in several gardens down the street.
A lot of the flowering plants in the garden have produced a second flush [probably just as confused as us about the weather]! We've still got cornflowers, red campion, mallow, sweet peas and the hydrangea out in the front, with a few cosmos, before the wind blew them away! I had approximately one sunflower which was chewed off by slugs (not consumed at a later date, just sheer violence, or potentially revenge - more on this later). In the back, the red and crimson clovers are still out, along with ragwort, verbena, salvias, honeysuckle, Cistus (rock rose), fox and cubs (Pilosella aurantiaca) and, very briefly two flowers on my £5 hibiscus! The pale blue flower below is flax (Linum usitatissimum), which I belive comes from the birdseed - as the flowers are directly below the feeders.
All the wet weather has brought slugs out in droves [interesting note: the collective noun for slugs is a "cornucopia"], particularly the huge orange ones (Arion ater). They seem particularly attracted to the long 'wild' grass in the back garden. This photo (right) is of 10 orange slugs that I picked up in 10 minutes one evening. This was followed by another 15 the following morning, and another 5 that night.
They were not returnees, as any I found I placed in our garden recycling bin. I'm not anti-wildlife, but these guys can predate the smaller slugs (which birds are more likely to eat) and munch through birdseed and peanuts like no other. And nothing seems to eat them! I can't ethically kill them, so instead they get a free trip to the council compost facility.
It's not just the slugs that have learned how to get into the peanut feeder....the magpies and gulls must have been watching the squirrels as they have also been observed taking nuts...The larger gulls have an issue with the lid, as they try to grab it with their beaks in an attempt to either fly off with it or at least move it to a safer place. This has resulted in beak grooves and gouges in the lid.
In other wildlife news:
Young starlings are changing into their adult plumage...
...squirrels have been making the most of a tub of soil [which I'm growing willow in, to repair our willow fence] and using it as a dust bath before getting some proper yoga stretching in...
...and something...be it fox or badger has been experimenting with fruit foraging...I found some very...explosive... scat in the garden this morning which was filled with plum stones...
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