We had our first serious frost of the season last night. I went out today and it was glorious with the later autumn colours and a light that an artist would die for. Naturally the phone had been left on charge so I oouldn't take any pictures.
The frost was burning off at the start of the walk and the sun catching the moisture on an autumn sown crop revealed what looked like the trail of a giant slug across the field. Despite having watched the Horror Channel yesterday I looked for a more prosaic explanation and the disturbance at the edge of the field gave it away as a wandering badger. Throughout the walk there were plenty of signs of badger activity and they haven['t found it necessary to make any serious incursions into the gardens yet.
Walking in some of our local green lanes the sun coming through the branches meant that many birds were only in silhouette. The rather exotic small black bird turned out to be nothing more exciting than a great tit when I shifted my viewpoint. I was lucky though to see a wren sized shape but the tail wasn't cocked so again I changed the viewpoint to get a quick glimpse of a goldcrest.
In the garden a blackbird has been added to the species count, a cock bird that lurks in the shrubs by the bottom fence and has ignored the food out out so far. There are still plenty of leaves on the plants down there and I have had some tantilizing glimpses of small brown birds that may have been house sparrows but I haven't had a clear view for an id.
High summer and early autumn is always a quiet time for birds in my garden. I no longer feed after my summer holiday as I have ended up throwing away far to much mouldy fat or seed. Normally I would wait until November before putting the feeders back out but a party of long tailed tits appeared in the front garden today so I think that it might be worth while trying a single fat bar for the moment. For the past couple of weeks I have seen a lot of roadside signs saying "beware of deer" in places where I wouldn't normally see them. Last weekend I decided that they might be justified when I encountered a herd of roe deer in the road between Ley Hill and Latimer. While muntjac are seen often enough the roes tend to be shy and this was only the third time that I have had a good look at some in all the years that I have lived here.
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