Autumn colour

The autumn colours are now just passing their peak.  Out and about, the beech trees have been a lovely burnished orange-brown, with smaller trees green-gold.  In our garden, the colour is mostly from the cotoneasters, both the red leaves (which are looking a bit pink in these pictures, I don't know why) and the berries.  The berries are left by the birds until fairly late, although a female blackbird has been in the big cotoneaster regularly.  I've swept up the fallen leaves and tried not to get too many berries in there; they self-seed dreadfully.

Every time the big ash tree drops a few twigs I can't help wondering if it's ash blight; but it has had dead bits for as long as we've been here, and ash trees are notorious for dropping sometimes quite big branches.  Let's wait until spring and see.  Maybe it'll turn out to be one of the immune ones.  However I can't help hoping that its many progeny around the garden aren't immune.  Ash is another bad seeder; you oftne don't notice until suddenly you spot a five-footer coming up through another shrub.

Still on the tree front, the hazels have catkins already; isn't this a bit early?  But they add to indoor flower arrangements.  Not that there's much to arrange: winter jasmine, winter viburnums, the yellow chrysanths.  The cyclamen have given up, and there are only odd single blooms around the place (including a 'Mousseline' rose).

Rather damp Saturday, lovely bright Sunday but a very frosty night in between.  Milder this week.

Bits of the holly tree, with berries, have been cut for Christmas, before the frosty night and the inevitable bird influx.  Sure enough, chilly Sunday morning saw a fieldfare in the apple tree, where he spent all morning demolishing a large apple, in the sun.  The green woodpecker, still around from time to time, will not be pleased - the apple tree is his haunt.  A pheasant spent the morning on the summerhouse roof; two females were inspecting the veg garden on Saturday.  The smaller birds are showing more interest in food put out for them, and my weeding in the garden on Sunday was much appreciated by the robin.