Autumn 2009 September
September is here. In this corner of the country we have been enjoying a wonderful summer. Don’t speak too loudly, as the rest of the country have had it much worse than us. We are still enjoying wonderful sunny days, but the gentle breezes now carry a chill and the nights are colder. Suddenly it is feeling like Autumn.
The moon now hangs in the early evening sky, white, flat and delicate like a communion wafer. The dawns seem more golden, as if the sky has been lowered. The sun is lower and the quality of the light has changed, dusting the landscape with the feel of an old oil painting. As if to emphasise this, every tree and every hedgerow is hung with fruits, blackberries in glorious bunches, delicate elderberries dance like sprays of jet beads, old-man’s beard outlining every hawthorn bush. Gardens glow like Chinese carnivals, festooned with a riot of orange passion fruits that hang lantern-like among the white and purple flowers, jade green grapes frame wooden arches, hops and honeysuckle drape from branches like paper-chains. The air is sweet with the aroma of perfect ripeness poised on the brink of decay, the bloom on everything is the moisture which will support mildew. We are caught in the moment like Caravaggio’s Bacchus.
Goldfinches and greenfinches seek out birdfeeders, as the last seeds torn from plants fill the air with down. Moths flourish in the warm, damp late summer air. All the insects and many small animals are drunk on sugar. The droppings left by foxes and birds tell you who stole your soft fruit crop.
This is the time of year that links us most closely with the past, in these days where everything is available all through the year. Bales of hay stand like gold sovereigns in the fields, the earth is laid bare, the countryside resembles corduroy patchwork. Kent prepares for harvest festivals, housewives buy jam-pot-covers, Persephone prepares to return to the Underworld, and the Autumn Equinox gives us an extra hour in bed.
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Text and photos by Geraldine Aldridge
4th First for this month I want to show you this photo of a red admiral butterfly on a tree trunk. You can see how well camouflaged it is against the bark and lichen, I didn't spot it until it moved.
Later at West Hythe I also spotted another butterfly, this time a speckled wood which can be equally hard to find and again its not until they move that you do.
Two dragonflies were seen a common darter [female] and a splendid migrant hawker. I caught sight of quite a few darters also a number of migrant hawkers which very obligingly perch for some time unlike the emperor dragonfly that never seems to land at all !
Pond skaters were numerous doing there amazing walking on water, carefully perched on the water film.
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5th Over at the Deer Park they had been releasing young pheasants, here is a cock which has nearly got all its adult plumage and a female.
The gamekeeper had emptied the pond by the lane and had built some new duck houses, the old ones must have been there for some time judging by the condition they were in.
Flocks of house martins were were passing over making there way to the coast, feeding as they go in readiness for the flight back to Africa. What a feat! Such a small bird travailing all that way and then back in the spring!
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7th My visit to Russel Gardens was fruitful, I found a little grebes nest about three meters from the bank. One of the parent birds was on the nest with the chicks which were not very old, I was surprised to see chicks this late in the season. Later they were out on clear water, a charming sight with the parent bird continually diving for food and bring what it had caught back to the chicks that were calling most of the time. I managed to get this shot of the parent swimming under water, traveling some distance in search for food.
Coots were behaving in there usual aggressive manner but at one point one was chased off by a little grebe because it got too close to its chicks!
Later that day I went for a walk with my brother up on the downs and came across a huge fungi called a giant polypore at the base of a tree, it must have been about thirty centimeters wide. [Don't eat any fungi you may find].
The day finished off with a lovely sunset.
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8th First visit to Sevenoaks Wildlife Reserve, what a lovely place. Lakes surrounded by woods and they have a visitors centre which has a good display of what's to be found, teas, coffee etc plus toilets.
The friend who I was with who had told me about this reserve showed me a bees nest in a hole in the trunk of a weeping willow by one of the lakes. The bees had built some of the comb on the trunk around the hole but not using it, puzzling as to why they should have done that.
Had a good view of a heron preening its self and a kingfisher put in an appearance. Plus I saw three types of butterfly a comma, red admiral and a painted lady.
Also the first time I had seen a wild flower called a scarlet pimpernel and a very large fungi called 'chicken of the wood' which was growing on the side of a tree trunk, it was thirty five or more centimetres across. [ Warning, never eat any fungi you come across!]
From one of the hides we watched greylag and canada geese bathing as you can see from these photos they were completely immersing them selves and turning them selves upside down in the water, I had never seen this before. Also there was an albino canada goose there that the other canada geese followed about like it was there leader!
A few of the other birds there were black-headed gull, cormorant And can you identify the bird in the foreground?
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10th Over at West Hythe and had a great sight of a cormorant trying to swallow a large fish. It kept trying and trying, loosing it and then diving to catch it again, it was obviously too big!
Other things I saw were a pair of common darters mating, a lizard which had lost it's tail [ they do this if attacked, the detached tail still wiggles and draws the predators attention away from the lizard ] and the acorns are all most ripe so the jays will be after them soon.
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13th Paid a visit to Faversham and Oare Marshes with another friend, at Faversham we came across an old wasps nest in some bushes looking like a forgotten football. You can see the layers of wood pulp deposited by the wasps to build the nest.
At Oare Marshes we saw lots of red shanks and lapwings also a couple of little egrets and a lone greylag goose who seem to spend all its time on one leg stuck to the mud.
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18th And I was over at the Deer Park, lots of house martins and young swallows feeding before the long flight back to Africa.
Sweet chestnuts swelling and soon to fall and beech nuts that have.
Called in to West Hythe on the way back and was lucky to see a pair of foxes at the top of the field and a pair of common lizards on a step by the canal, wont be long before these two hibernate.
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21st Got this shot of a male house sparrow from a landing window, it was perched on some roof tiles opposite.
Went over to West Hythe. Still lots of migrant hawkers around and I was lucky to get this photo of a pair mating, the male is the one with the blue markings.
Also got this shot of a drone fly, a type of hover fly that resembles a honey bee.
Other subjects that day were a marsh frog and a young moorhen feeding on blackberries, it was obviously really enjoying them.
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22nd At Russel Gardens and got a nice shot of a moorhen on the grass. Also a few of a little grebe with its chicks, the chicks would make a lot of splashing and calling by the parent begging for food. In one of these shots you can see that the parent has given it a stickleback [a small fish].
I was very pleased to get this shot of a small white butterfly in flight around a bramble, I was determined to get this shot so I just kept taking them and hoped one of them would turn out all right.
Lovely to see the lichen growing on some of the branches, a sign of clear air!
Horse chestnuts are ripe and starting to come down to the delight of conker gatherers!
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24th I took a trip to a place called Samphire Hoe in the hope of seeing a peregrine falcon. This is the place were they deposited some of the chalk from the channel tunnel and have now made it into a nature reserve.
Didn't see one but got a few shots of a female kestrel and a nice one of a migrant hawker dragonfly by a small pond.
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25th Over to Samphire Hoe again to try and see a peregrine again but no luck. Did have a close encounter with a female sparrow hawk, it came flying round the walk way by the sea wall and I managed to get this shot, not brilliant but you can see what it is.
Also saw a pair of herons flying over the sea going towards Dover harbour, I haven't seen herons out to see like that before.
Other things of interest were wheatears passing through, stonechats and a kestrel being mobbed by a pair of jackdaws.
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28th Back over to Sevenoaks Wildlife Reserve, this time saw a half grown great crested grebe chick, little cattle egret, lots of greylag geese and the unusual sight of a pied wagtail repeatedly chasing a snipe! It was begging to look like the two were enjoying it!
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