A sparrow falls

Scene: I'm indoors watching well over a dozen sparrows joyously going about their morning business on the patio. It's bathtime: three or four sparrows splashing in the bird bath, a couple in the small saucers of water and six crammed into the terracotta shell bath (didn't think it could hold that many), plus a few others feeding on the fatball container.  I glance away, and suddenly a dark shape flashes by the window; when I look out again, the sparrows have scattered and the female sparrowhawk is standing on the patio with a dead sparrow under her claws.  We eye each other for a few seconds; I don't want to watch what will happen next, so I make a movement which makes her fly away, taking her lunch with her.  She's certainly an quick and efficient killer, and I expect the sparrow didn't know what had hit it; at least I didn't have to deal with the remains.  Actually we've had a very low casualty rate this year, at least in terms of corpses to bury.  Several birds have flown into the windows, as always happens, but all seem to have bounced off with nothing worse than a sore head.  There have only been two burials: a fledgeling blackbird in early summer, and a little vole found on the lawn just the other day.  The blackbird was found ailing at the bottom of the garden with no obvious injuries; we tried to help in a hamfisted sort of way, but it died a couple of hours later and was buried under a blackcurrant bush whose fruit it would have enjoyed if it had lasted a few weeks longer.  The little vole - perhaps the little fellow who has been living in the compost bin? - was much smaller and easier to deal with; I put him in a shallow scrape under ivy in the bottom hedgerow.

First colour on the spindle tree

Viburnum x bodnantense 'Dawn'

Autumn is drawing on, with the first storm of the winter (windy rather than very wet), leaves starting to sprinkle the lawn, and the spindle tree beginning to turn red.  Temperatures are dropping, particularly at night (9.3C is the current low in the greenhouse), although today was pleasantly warm and sunny (lunch outdoors).  It's becoming more difficult to find flowers for cutting in the garden, although Phlox 'White Admiral' is still (rather too) bright, Sedum 'Herbstfreude' is just colouring and there are still dahlias coming (though they haven't done too well this year; in too shady a spot, I think).  The pink Japanese anemone is petering out.  There are a few cyclamen under the holly tree - not as many as usual, must do something about that - a nice patch of borage by the new terrace, and Viburnum 'Dawn' is in flower already.  There are also a few odd blooms here and there, such as some late flowers on the astrantia, but overall there's not too much flower colour in the garden.  It has been a good year for berries, though.

Cyclamen hederifolium

Elderberries

The pak choi and some of the dill have been planted out in the vegetable garden, with beer traps for the slugs alongside; these have indeed filled up with dead molluscs, and the seedlings have survived so far without damage, so I think I may have found at least some sort of solution to the problem!

Despite the few flowers available, there are still some butterflies about - three red admirals and one each of large white, speckled wood and comma.  And a big dragonfly zooming around the other day.  There are plenty of smaller flies as well; the swallows and house martins have been feeding overhead, and we've had visits at dusk from a little bat which is presumably finding plenty to eat as well.

Mists and mellow fruitfulness

We are now into meteorological autumn, although the weather has been there for some time.  The day after my last post saw the first autumn dew on the grass in the morning, and overall the weather has been cool (not to mention chilly on occasion) and showery, with the exception of a hot Bank Holiday weekend and some nice sun last Saturday.  A few days have been seriously misty, more November than August.  There's still time for an Indian summer, but I'm not holding my breath.

Mellow fruitfulness: a few tomatoes

The plum crop was very early, and small, but the fruit was of good size and sweet.  The early apples have started; the 'Discovery' ones are mostly eaten (partly by the wasps!) but the little tree that we keep mostly for its value as a bird feeder support has produced better-sized apples than usual (I thinned it fairly thoroughly).  The cooker has its usual crop of huge fruit, but they won't be ready for a few weeks yet.  D picked a nice punnet of blackberries from the local hedges, and the various little alpine strawberry plants dotted around the garden have been keeping us in occasional strawberry feasts.

... and some chillies

Most of the bean plants have been ravaged by the slugs, but there are a few French beans; the 'Roquencourt' ones seem to have withstood the onslaught rather better than 'Ferrari', though I've had a few beans from both.  I've had a (very) few courgettes, all from one plant ('Zucchini': the 'Orelia' in the tub hasn't actually done anything).  The kale and cabbages have been keeping me in stir-fry greens; netting them hasn't completely kept the pests off, but it has protected them from the worst.  In the greenhouse, the tomatoes are cropping quite well and the aubergines, although very small, are better than I've had in the past.

Pak choi in the greenhouse

This year I've finally realised that it's possible to sow plants in the greenhouse in late summer/autumn and get them bedded out before winter.  There's a nice little crop of lettuces, pak choi, cabbages and various herbs in modules in there; also a trayful of old pea seeds grown for salad pea shoots, and I'm trying some carrots in a trough (with the intention of pulling them before they grow long enough to hit the bottom of the trough - we'll see if that works).  I'm still trying to pluck up courage to plant out the ones than need to go outdoors; some slug traps are going to be required.  I did sow some seeds direct a few weeks ago and they germinated ok, only to disappear virtually overnight, leaving a few chewed stumps.  The toad and the hedgehog are not doing their job, obviously.  (We met the hedgehog over the Bank Holiday weekend; returning from a late supper in the summerhouse, we found a dark, hedgehoggy shape on the lawn, but he had disappeared by the time we got the torch out.)  It seems a pity to put out such thriving plantlets only to have them eaten by the slugs; in fact the lettuces look so good that I may just leave them in the greenhouse and use them as baby leaves.

Lettuces and some kale

Coriander

Pink gazania

Earlier in the summer I put the tender plants outdoors for some fresh air.  The avocado went back into the greenhouse when the weather started to cool, but the hedychiums are still out there.  I planted one of them in a big pot with a couple of tithonias and some other things (I was thinking of a lush, tropical look); the tithonias have just started to flower and the hedychium has two fat flower spikes coming up, so they may just flower before it gets too cold for them!  On the subject of tender plants: last winter I kept a couple of gazanias going in the greenhouse.  They're still in their pots (outside now), but the flowers are lovely.

There seems to have been some sort of animal fracas in the garden one night; the builders found several large tufts of what looked like rabbit fur, and the courgette tub had been tipped over the edge of the terrace.  It would have required a very muscular rabbit to move it!  I'm guessing that we might have had a fox in (even a cat would have found it heavy to move).

The birds are having their moult at the moment.  Very few blackbirds are coming into the garden, and now that the breeding season is over the starlings have vanished also.  (Sadly for them, their nest hole in the wall up by the roof has been filled in; they were making an expensive mess of the roof woodwork.  A few sparrow nest holes have probably also gone.  Sorry, sparrows.)  My little robin now has his adult plumage, but is still very sociable with humans, if not with other robins!  Our builders almost managed to get him to feed from their hands.  Today we've had a willow warbler and a juvenile male bullfinch come to the patio for water.  The butterflies have started to tail off; a comma has been on the buddleja, and there's a speckled wood fluttering about in the shadier spots.  The buddleja is fading now, but the borage seems to be keeping the bees happy.

Dianthus and lysimachia

Mostly dahlias

Flowers for the house recently have mostly been dahlias, dianthus and Lysimachia clethroides, with the occasional sweet pea.