My blog is mostly about wildlife, particularly birds, walking, days out, all growing things and anything else that comes to mind.
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Sunday 17 August 2008

I may have to admit to Autumn starting

I watched in fascination this morning, as a Grey Squirrel sat underneath one of my garden plants - a Silene! These self-seed very easily and are now everywhere in the garden. Said Grey Squirrel was reaching up to the seed heads and then pulling them into easy "sitting" reach whereby it started to feed on, I presume, the seeds! It stayed there for some time before deciding it had had enough breakfast and off it went.

From the quieter time of summer in the garden when, more recently, it's been the juvenile birds visiting, today, much to my amazement I had a flock of 17 Greenfinches! This in addition to 3 Long-tailed Tits, 1 Robin, (only) 6 Feral Pigeons, 8 Ring-necked Parakeets, 4 x Blue Tits and 3 Great Tits; 2 chaffinches and 1 Goldfinch. All these on or around the feeders at the same time!

Later on in the morning - the rain had stopped and the sun came out - I headed off for Esher Common. This time starting at Middle Pond and walking through to Black Pond in the hope of some dragons. Regrettably only saw a couple of darters - probably common; I committed the cardinal sin of leaving my binoculars in the car so couldn't ID them properly.

Some interesting tree roots gathering lichen, the dying reeds creating colourful reflections in the water, and ripening Blackberries in the woods.

Yes - like it or not, summer is beginning to give way to Autumn.

Believe me, I love Autumn with it's incoming bird life, the wonderful colours of October and the fungi beginning to show itself - it's just not having had a "full" summer that is a little sad.

In the garden.


Whoops - mustn't lean to far back or ......


On Esher Common


7 comments:

oldcrow61 said...

Can't help but love that squirrel. What great pictures you got. The pictures of the tree roots and moss and the reeds or grasses in the water are fabulous.

Cheryl said...

It is sad that summer never really began......but autumn is a lovely season in this country....

that is one cute squirrel you have there......

BUT the roots on that tree are wonderful, a definate work of art......

avalon said...

love the squirrels so cute great pictures hope you had a good day. Loved the london eye pictures the other day as well nice to spend time with the family

mick said...

What an impressive bird list in your garden! Also I loved the sequence of photos of the squirrels.

Tricia Ryder said...

OC and Cheryl - the roots are great aren't they!

Avalon - yes, nice to have the family up for a while :)

Mick - I consider myself very lucky with the birds. GSW juvenile this morning again, and also heard the Nuthatch!

Yoke, said...

Lovely Squirrel, and as a kid from the Forest, I love your tree roots.

The Squirrel is almost too cute!

I used to love autumn as a kid, the changes in the forest would be so overwhelming.

These days, give me Spring any time. The idea of my Swallows leaving is a sombre one and will influence my moods for weeks on end. Their chittering in the air around the house is part of summer for me.

Jan said...

That squirrel is so cute. One of the photos looks like he's about to topple backwards lol!

I know I am forever moaning about the weather, but honestly, this is the worst one I can ever remember, we've literally had less than 10 days of what I would call summer weather here, it has to be the wettest, windiest and coolest ever. Very fed up.

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