Autumn leaves - where's winter?

After a very wet day and a very windy night, Sunday 25th November started out in sunshine with robins singing strongly, the river high, flowing swiftly, herring gulls sailing overhead, a nuthatch climbing upside down along a branch and another calling close by, heading for the first bird.

Blue tits and great tits operating low down, just above the water, skimming off insects amongst the floating debris - the river alive with birds, soaking wet house sparrows preening amongst the twigs after bathing in the river. Millions of midges dancing over the sunlit water.

No place to hide? Fly to the Holly and Ivy

 A third nuthatch flying across and a goldfinch feeding on seeds on a tree and eight more flying into a riverside tree, their soft calls drowned out by the loud chattering of house sparrows deep in a dense hedge. Blackbirds foraging amongst more open Hawthorns and Blackthorns with occasional soft calls and alarms, with more feeding along the base of the hedges where piles of leaves are caught up in the roots. A grey squirrel climbing high up in the Blackthorn settling itself in characteristic pose with tail curved over its back in a fork in a branch, eating a large sloe.

Layers of fallen leaves - and now twigs

The ground is covered in small twigs and branches after the overnight gales, forming a fresh carpet over the now dark carpet of old fallen leaves. The colour of the landscape changes day by day. 

Formerly dense thickets of deciduous Hazel, Willow, Hawthorn and Maple now offer no hiding place amongst their branches, today the only hiding places are in Hollies and Ivy and undergrowth close to the ground where piles of leaves provide shelter. A Jay flying across in search of acorns, usually plentiful at this time of the year but very rare after a lean year. Another nuthatch arrives in one of the oaks almost falling down the trunk head first in its eagerness to collect insects it has spotted. Smart silent chaffinches are easily seen in trees now but very well camouflaged when foraging amongst the fallen leaves. Black-headed gulls keep their distance from groups of woodpigeons feeding on the grass.

Dark now, threatening heavy rain, in turning back, a fine close-up view of a kestrel as it flies over to the river and hovers over the bank in front of me, low down, then drops like a stone. It's caught its prey, probably a bank vole scurrying for shelter.

As with the sparrowhawk, predators such as these take advantage of the general confusion a sudden change in the weather can generate - master opportunists.