WINTER IS ON ITS WAY

The cold of autumn has arrived, and it signalled the garden birds to descend on the garden; feasting on the peanuts and fat balls.

We’ve seen house sparrows, blue tits, great tits, the odd dunnock and a robin (for the first time in weeks).

There has been a number of jays around recently, and it’s great that they are now increasing their presence around the garden, while the local magpies pay almost daily visits.

No blackbirds have been seen for a while, so I wonder if the incident involving the tawny owl and blackbird at night a couple of months ago has impacted on this. If none are seen in the next month or so, then I might suspect it has.

A frost has lightly carpeted the lawn for the last two days, while the nearby trees and bushes are turning lovely autumnal shades of yellow, brown and orange – all apart from the evergreens!

This week feels the start of the change from summer/autumn to autumn/winter, and the early dark nights that we’ll have for the next five months.

Of course, the clocks going back doesn’t have any impact on the wildlife, but it does impact when we can help them with handouts – for me it’s weekends only.

In news from the lane, badgers have once again been seen, with two spotted on separate nights, a week apart but in the same area, exploring the hedges.

It happened around 8/9pm and is great news because we’ve not seen any badgers down the lane for years.

They were seen regularly, along with the odd fox and loads of rabbits, but it’s rare to see any of them now, which is not good for the rabbits because they were seen at least once a week; now they’re seen every six months.