Something for the weekend: 8 October 2010
|16:39 UK time, Friday, 8 October 2010
Guest blogger: Stephen Moss is a series producer at the BBC Natural History Unit and author, with a special interest in British wildlife. Here he begins an occasional series of personal reflections on the the seasonal wildlife in his garden.
Just as all the summer clothes are safely packed away, and the central heating has come on, an Indian Summer has arrived, with temperatures in the low 20s - more like June than October.
Great news for the various butterflies and dragonflies feeding in my Somerset garden: hardy autumn insects such as red admirals, which are currently getting drunk on the fermented juice of rotten cider apples strewn across my lawn.
They are so preoccupied with feeding that they hardly notice me as I approach, and I am able to marvel at the extraordinary beauty of what, if they were a bird, I would call their plumage. No other British butterfly shows quite such vibrant contrasts of ebony black, crimson red and white – and I do wonder whether, if red admirals were as rare as high brown fritillaries or purple emperors, we might appreciate their beauty more!
The other insect enjoying the autumn sunshine in my garden is the common darter dragonfly – a rhubarb-and-custard bi-plane of an insect, whose males are currently chasing their prospective mates around, in an urgent desire to mate before the frosts set in.
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In the skies above Bristol and Somerset – and probably above much of the country too, there is a minor invasion. Jays – those colourful, stocky cousins of the magpie, are bouncing across the blue heavens, occasionally uttering that extraordinary call that sounds like muslin being torn apart.
These are not British jays, but birds from the continent, invading our shores in search of food. Over the coming season they will strip oak trees of acorns, eating some and caching others, to retrieve later in the year when food is scarce. This is how oak trees move uphill, of course.
So as the weather holds this weekend, what better time to head out into the autumnal countryside (or indeed suburbs, city parks and seaside) and look for wildlife…
Stephen Moss’s latest series, Birds Britannia, will be shown on BBC Four from Monday 1st November.
Comment number 1.
At 13:04 9th Oct 2010, SUNNYLITTLEBEAR wrote:Look forward to the new series Stephen.
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Comment number 2.
At 15:56 9th Oct 2010, LazyRizzo wrote:Enjoyed hearing your talks (and question master role!) at the Bird Fair.
Not sure about the Indian Summer, in Leicestershire its grey, cold, misty and damp today :(
I have to collect lots of windfall apples from my elderly disabled father's lawn (he gets in a fret about them just lying there) and last Autumn I piled them up at the very end of the garden near the hedge. We wre rewarded with lots of redwings, fieldfares and blackbirds feeding on them during the cold weather. This year I've started piling them up already and yet there doesn't seem to be anything much feeding on them apart from wasps, slugs and the occasional blackbird. No butterflies. Is it too early? too late? or is it because the apple pile is in shade under a hedge?
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Comment number 3.
At 17:51 10th Oct 2010, Alex Berryman wrote:I am so glad autumn is here. I am looking forward to seeing the fieldfares and the redwings. I am just about to put out my nestbox for the garden an am wondering whether tumble dryer fluff is suitable to put out in my garden for the birds to use as nesting material.
alex - age 13
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