From inside

 

Dahlia pots

We’re into autumn – some warmish sunshine, a little rain and wind, cool nights.  After the hot summer, the garden is coming back to life, with the dahlias finally flowering satisfactorily (except ‘Sam Hopkins’ which is still looking rather peaky) and the lawn mown on a dry afternoon the other day.

A pheasant hen party

A lot of my photographs recently seem to have been taken looking out through windows for one reason or another.  It’s shooting season, and the nearby estate brings in birds for sport, some of which come into the garden for safety.  They’re best viewed from indoors so as not to disturb them and send them flying back towards the guns.  We’ve had up to a dozen pheasants on the lawn, large numbers of partridges wandering through the garden and even a few ducks (a recent innovation hereabouts) that strolled past the greenhouse one day when I was working inside; they seem partial to a fallen apple or two.

Ducks seen from the greenhouse

Also seen from inside the greenhouse was a juvenile woodpigeon, quite unconcernedly poking around in the grass.

Young woodpigeon

After my recent comment that we had no blackbirds or starlings for weeks, a few have reappeared.  The blackbirds don't seem to have finished moulting yet; they will presumably come back in due course.  Some starlings have also been in the trees opposite the house, and one ventured into our loft and had to be let out.  But they seem to be leaving our apples alone (which is a good thing but probably won't last).

A different sort of wildlife: a spider has set up home outside the kitchen window, with a most impressive web that sparkles with raindrops in the wet.  I’m becoming quite fond of her (it’s female spiders that spin these webs).  She has an alternative base in the top corner of the window embrasure, where she takes larger prey (a hoverfly, the other day) to digest at her leisure.  (Despite my best endeavours I can’t get a sharper image of her.)

A couple of sky photos, also seen through windows: a morning cloudscape and a vivid sunset, the latter seen from inside the village hall.