THE CHANGING OF THE BRITISH SEASONS

Autumn has arrived, the last of the swallows have gone and jays are busy burying caches of winter food.

Now is the time when the hard work of our plants and trees starts to pay off as the seeds are taken by birds and mammals and deposited nearby, either through accidentally dropping or through passing through the digestive system and landing with ready-made ‘fertiliser’.

The sunflowers in my garden are proving irresistible to the great tits, while the blue tits are also enjoying the harvest, but having less success with the larger varieties of seeds.

The cooler and wetter weather of recent days has meant sightings of butterflies and bees have dropped to virtually zero, but I’ve seen an increasing number of spiders located in the house.

One such spider, which I thought had not ventured this far north in the UK, was the Noble False Widow, which has been causing increasing amount of concern among the general public.

It’s the less venomous cousin of the Black Widow spider, but is still capable of inflicting a nasty bite when is feels threatened.

To be honest I felt threatened when I saw it in my kitchen, so promptly took it far away from the house.

I knew it was a Noble False Widow because the day before I saw it I’d read about these spiders in a number of papers and researched images online.

The distinct pale pattern on the dark rear abdomen was clear to see and before I thought about a pic, I simply took it away from the house – next time I’ll get a pic, although I hope there’s not a next time!

With the swallows long gone and another six months of waiting to see them arrive back again, I’ve started to notice a number of jays near the house.

I always had them down as shy woodland birds, but in the last two years I’ve seen them on the hard shoulder of motorways, inches from high speed traffic, collecting things.

I’ve also noticed an increasing number of them on the road leading to my house, this week appearing to stuff a food supply in the soft road side verges.

They are clever birds and it appears we have an expanding population of them which is forcing some to come to the less wooded area around my house.

Finally the weather ‘forecast’ for this winter seem to be snow and very cold, which could help rid us of nasty bugs, but also increase our heating bills. No point worrying about it now, if it does happen let’s just try and enjoy it.