Early Autumn?

The blackberries are out, the leaves are starting to change colour, acorns are starting to fall, which all suggests that autumn is beginning! I love autumn. I've seen various things on social media and news articles recently saying that autumn has started early, or that we are seeing a 'false autumn' as a result of the recent heatwaves and generally due to climate change. Obviously, any effects of climate change (or climate breakdown) are very worrying, and I am in no way denying that this is a major issue of our time and is a result of our careless distruction of the planet (I won't go into a rant about this here).

But, isn't it nearly autumn anyway? And if it is starting a little earlier, maybe that's because all the other seasons are starting at different times now too (still as a result of climate change)? Saying it's a 'false autumn' suggests that there may be another, true autumn later in the year. But we are coming towards the end of what is traditionally considered summer, and it has been a very hot summer. So, isn't it just the beginning of autumn, maybe a couple of weeks earlier than ususal? These are just my thoughts on the matter, and may well be completely wrong. Also, autumn is my favourite season, so maybe I'm being overly optimistic.

It's still a bit too hot (for me), and I realise that some people love the summer and enjoy the heat, longer daylight hours etc. And some people find the autumn and winter difficult - changes is amount of daylight, it gets a bit colder etc. But I love that! I hope it is that autumn is starting a little earlier this year, and I hope it gets a bit cooler soon. (I also hope that it's not too late to fix the damage we have done to the world.)

The Rat is Back

 We're finally at the end of the heatwave. It's cooler today, but very humid, and we have warnings for thunderstorms over the next few days. The birds are a bit more active in the garden today, I think they've managed to throw some of their food from the feeder across the lawn (which is all yellow/brown). The rat (who occasionally visits the garden, usually when the grass is longer) has come back today and is eating all the seeds off of the ground.

I know I should be ok with it, and I'm really trying to be. I have a bit of an issue with rats...I'm really not keen on having one in the garden! The poor creature is probably just hungry (as most fruit and vegetables etc. haven't really grown very well because of the heat and lack of rain). If I just ignore it, maybe it will just go away once it has finished eating the seeds that the birds have spilled. As my husband keeps telling me...if we're going to live somewhere rural and insist having a wildlife-friendly garden, I'm probably going to have to accept all wildlife....including the rat.

 

Unexpected Owl

 The badgers are still visiting our garden every night. On saturday night, we were looking out of the bedroom window, watching a badger snuffle around. Then something flew passed the window, wings flapping but completely silent. It took me a few seconds to work out what it was, as it was moving quite fast, but I think it was an owl! It was quite big and looked fairly pale in colour (it was just getting dark, so I couldn't see that clearly).  My son, who was watching the badger with me, declared that it was a barn owl. He may well be right, he's much better at identifying birds than I am (and his eye sight is much better than mine).

I've never seen an owl in the wild before, so it was very exciting to see one just fly past my window. You can understand why people describe them as ghost-like, not only because of their colour but because of the weird silence. It was quite close to the window, which was open, and I couldn't hear any flapping noise from the (fairly large) wings or anything. It's really odd when you think about how big the owl is, my brain tells me that I should have heard some kind of noise as it flew past, but there was none. Obviously, it's well known that owls can fly silently, but it's strange and amazing to actually see, but not hear one in real life.

Every night now, when I look out for the badgers, I will also look out for the owl. The likelihood of seeing it again is probably minimal, but I can hope.

Buzzards....maybe?

 We actually had some rain yesterday....but not very much. It was just sort of drizzle on and off all afternoon. Unfortunately, not enough to make any real difference to the garden, everything is still very dry. I keep seeing warnings that August will be quite a dry month too, so we should be careful with the amount of water we are using. Still really hoping for a big storm or just some heavy rain! 

There are a lot of birds coming into the garden, and they are still enjoying the extra bowls of water we've been putting out. Temperatures continue to be above average for the time of year, but at least we're not in another heatwave (at the moment). The badger is making nightly visits to the garden too, and sometimes a second badger comes along.

The pheasants seem to be coming back into the field near our house, I've seen a big male pheasant strutting around a few times in the last week. Recently, we've seen a couple of birds of prey in the field too. They are around most days, either circling above the fields or resting on the fence posts. I think they are buzzards, but they are always slightly too far away to see clearly. We hear them quite often too. (I'm not that good at identifying birds of prey.) They are quite big, brownish coloured and make a screeching noise. Hopefully, I'll either get a clearer view at some point, or be able to get a photo of them.