Autumn Colours

Spindle Berries

Autumn has started in earnest at the woods, with spectacular colours mingled with green and yellow, a brown tinge on the oak leaves, and acorns clattering to the ground all over.  The colour of the spindle berries in the hedge in Betty’s Wood is unreal, with the clashing colours of bright pink and orange shining like a beacon in the gloomy and rainy weather.

Guelder rose leaves and berries

Another spectacular resident of our hedge is guelder rose.  The berries are now a shiny red, almost metallic in colour, and the leaves have turned the same red.  Red on red makes for another beam of light in the gloom of the autumn rains.

Field Maple

Field maple is also turning a wonderful mixture of colours in our hedge and in the few trees we have in the main wood.  Red, orange, brown, green and yellow in one leaf, autumn in miniature.  All the maples seem to turn the most amazing colours, and although we no longer have sycamore in our woods, the ornamental trees around the town are a beautiful rich golden yellow at the moment, waiting for the autumn gales to strip the leaves from the trees to form a golden carpet instead.

Spindle berries

Autumn is my favourite time of year for many reasons:  the colours, the outrageous surplus of frutifulness, the restless departure of one set of migratory birds and the arrival of another set of migratory birds – the fieldfares arriving as the swallows depart.  We love autumn, and I hope to post a lot more autumnal photos over the next few weeks.