After all the hot weather this summer, last week it turned very cold and early autumn is now evident. It was a sunny day on Sunday when I went thugh. I had a couple of small jobs to do but it was mainly a chill out day. My neighbours were in so it was nice to have some company and chew the fat with them. There’s never any danger of woodland talk getting boring to anyone there. It’s like a select club where everyone is enthusiastic about the subject.
I put some bird feed out for the first time since spring but I didn’t see one single bird on the feeders. Hardly any to be seen or heard anywhere in the woods, not even the friendly robins that usually seek me out. I wonder if the bird population has suffered badly with the hot dry weather or possibly bird flu? Well I just Googled it and see reports of avian flu have been confirmed in the area. When winter arrives, it will be interesting to see if there are many birds on the feeders because that is the time that food is scarce and they flock to them.
There were a few signs of fungi emerging now we have had some rain. The ones above are tiny puffballs just emerging from a rotten birch tree. I think the ones below are the same only bigger, they lose the spikyness when bigger.
I love it when the low sun casts shadows of twigs and leaves onto tree trunks. This is an Ash tree getting some shadow decoration.
So that’s all for this visit, I hope the next one will be an overnighter in the camper van.
Diary of a man and his woodland 