My liking for starlings is limited to admiration of their wonderful mumerations, and there, I’m afraid, it ends.
In my garden they descend on the window feeder and finish off the meal worms which are there for robins and a pair of blackbirds.
The starlings dive in, sometimes trying to balance in the limited space in such numbers that the worms disappear in a matter of minutes, or worse, pulling the feeder off the window altogether.
Sorry Starlings, but in spite of your beautiful oil-on-water coloured plumage, I’m put off by your greed, your gimlet beaks and the rather evil look in your eyes.
The Blackbirds have an interesting pattern of behaviour that I’ve not noticed before.
Often the male arrives first, perches on the handrail of the ramp within a couple of feet or so of the window feeder, and clucks.
Then he flutters onto it and begins to feed, whereupon the female dives in and he immediately flies off.
Occasionally they do it in reverse and the female arrives first and clucks for a moment.
I suspect that he clucks back but I can’t hear through the double glazing.
On one occasion she sat and clucked for a long time before he arrived.
Does his near presence make her feel safer I wonder?
The Robins, incidentally, are conspicuous by their absence.
The trees seem to have behaved very oddly this autumn
Or is it that I have just never noticed it before?
In spite of having no frosts to speak of, and no high winds, both of which would normally help to strip the trees bare, leaves are fluttering down anyway.
The large ash tree in my neighbours’ garden lost them in a most orderly fashion, starting on one side and working its way through until the whole tree had become denuded, whilst a little tree in my own front garden suddenly released them almost overnight.
The large acer in the front of another neighbours’ garden took almost precisely three weeks to give its leaves up completely.
Now at last we have some wind and brighter, cooler air has come in so the large cherry, also in my front garden, has decided to join in with this disrobing fray.
The lawn is now carpeted in the rich colours of autumn – bronze, and gold and all shades of red.
Unusual Weather
If we had had a few high winds, plus some sunshine, it might have helped the farmers but after a record 18 months or more of rain, fields are saturated.
Farmers have struggled to get in the last of the maize harvest, making the most of any breaks in the weather, but much of the ground is too saturated even to sow winter crops.
As it was, we had been trapped beneath a gloomy blanket of cloud caused by high pressure for almost two weeks with no great change from day to day.
This is unusual for this time of the year and it was a welcome relief to one and all when at last it lifted and turned a few degrees colder.
We even saw some sun now and then – we had almost forgotten what it looked like.
Maybe pests will be struck down soon as the forecast for the coming week is for much colder weather, and hedgehogs might at last have a chance to sleep.
I have recently been reading the diary of one of my daughters
It was written in the early 1970’s whilst she was at primary school at the age of 10 and 11.
Apart from all the things she and her sister and their friends got up to, she recorded snow, not only before and after Christmas but also in March and April.
Snow now is almost a distant memory, although we did have some spectacularly thick frosts just two or three years ago when my other daughter took a video of a walk in some woods on Bulbarrow.
This is accompanied by a musical tinkling of frost falling from the trees.
It was a lovely sound and one I have never heard before.
In spite of everything though, both gardens and countryside are beginning to shut down.
Ivy is in flower and there are berries on the holly if you know where to look.
There are some spectacular fungus around and, both daughters assure me, leaves are at a satisfyingly shuffling stage as I write this.
Scents of the Season
Apart from these obvious sights of late autumn, I do love the scents of the season all around me, whether I am in the garden or further afield on Genevieve.
Each season has its special smell and that of Autumn is of rotting leaves (much better than it sounds), damp earth and sometimes even wood smoke.
Quite soon it will smell of winter, hopefully of the sharp scent of frost and clean, fresh air.
And very soon, inside, there will be that very particular special one – that of spices, of puddings boiling and rich fruit cakes baking.
May I wish every one of you a very, very Happy Christmas