Natural highs and lows

Last week, I had planned to blog about a recent birthday, not a particularly significant birthday, but one with plenty of punning opportunities if one happened to be of a Beatles frame of mind. In fact, as part of the punning, I was going to post on the following day, thereby introducing a further song title. As I said, "I had planned", but somehow the muse struggled to leave the ground and the moment was lost. Anyhow, it was a lovely day, with a nice lunch at a gin distillery and a bit of wildlife watching afterwards (including my first Brambling of the year). Instead, here's a round up of October's natural history happenings. Parsnip Moth (on the bedroom wall, not in the vegetable patch) Our first Blackcap of the Autumn, which instigated a search for an apple source Whilst putting out the swiftly-purchased apples, we noticed that the recently-strimmed and mown lawn was riddled with Orkney Vole tunnels running through the grass. Unbeknownst to us, we had been sharing...

In the immediate aftermath of Storm Amy, I took a few photos of the large purple-flowered geraniums in the rockery. Despite being on the sheltered side of the house for the 24+ hours of 80mph gusts, they had been buffeted by the preliminary south-easterlies before the wind went around to the west for the rest of the performance. I think the vegetation was then caught in a pincer movement as the gusts swirled left and right around the property. I did manage to find one petal which had avoided being swept away to line the kerbs of Stavanger in Norway.   Yesterday, with the winds still gusting in the forties, I took a few more photos to document the garden during this briefest of Autumns. Interestingly, many plants which had been almost completely wind burnt, had the odd flower which appeared totally unscathed. On our southern boundary with a neighbour, the Rowan tree was devoid of leaves and berries, so the winter thrushes are going to be disappointed. Indeed, whilst wandering around...