What’s the first thing that comes to mind when you think of October? Shiny brown conkers, freshly rolled from their spiky cases? The kaleidoscope of colours provided by the turning leaves? Maybe it’s the orange of Halloween pumpkins?
These things are synonymous with October, the month of change, but there are all sorts of vibrant colours offered by nature in this this magic month.There are bright new colours from ducks, freshly-moulted out of their dull brown "eclipse plumage" and very much back to their brilliant best; the steely blues and chocolate browns of newly-arrived Scandinavian fieldfares gobbling berries in the hedgerows and the orange and black of bramblings feeding among beech mast.
The changing seasons, demonstrated beautifully by a bracken frond (Mark Ward)
Send your autumn photos - they could appear on the RSPB website!To celebrate October's feast of colours, we're inviting you to share your photographs capturing the best of autumn with us. From ravishing reds to glorious golds and perfect purples to outrageous oranges. We'll feature two winning images; one from an RSPB reserve and one from anywhere else in the UK which could be your garden, village, town or city, or your local patch. Just make make sure your camera is with you at all times because you never know when that perfect autumn moment will present itself. Don't forget your exclusive free access to RSPB reserves if you are an RSPB member and make the most of it this October.
The one hour colour challengeI'm lucky enough to work on one of the RSPB's brilliant nature reserves, so I set out to spend an hour walking around The Lodge to see just how many colours I could find – a jewellery box’s worth? A rainbow’s? Hopefully a full-on Dulux colour chart. I don't mind saying that it went pretty well. I hope my one hour ramble will give you some ideas. Over the next few weeks, the colours will just get better and better until those magic days when the trees look as if they are on fire. This is how I got on, but I know you''ll do much better!
First up was a nice easy bonus one – a bright blue sky. Not a cloud was in the sky and October can provide some nice “Indian Summer” days. This meant that photographic opportunities were everywhere. I’m no photographer, but my phone is always with me, enabling me to capture a lot of the wildlife sights I see.
The last of the bees were enjoying some daisies in the gardens – a single common carder bee and a common furrow bee providing a lovely ginger and glossy black respectively. Sweet chestnuts lay among their silk-lined, spiky cases littering the woodland floor, providing a reminder that brown can be beautiful too.
Head for ivy on sunny autumn days - you'll soon find where all the insects have gone! (comma by Mark Ward)
As I ambled through the woods, I could see it was a little early for the leaves on the trees to be displaying their best, but the bracken on the woodland floor was looking beautiful with a contrast between summer’s bright green colours and the new browns (see top image).
Turning the corner onto a country lane just off the reserve boundary, a deep buzz filed the air. I remembered, there was a good patch of ivy on the wall and it was alive with colour. The yellows were all ticked off with three hornets bumbling clumsily around the flowers, common wasps and some (always hard to identify to species) solitary wasps. There were plenty of hoverflies too: "The Footballer", Didea fasciata and Myathropa florea added extra shades of yellows and oranges, as did the comma and small copper butterflies also nectaring on the flowers. The orange commas (above) were a blaze of colour in the autumn sunshine.
Autumn beech - each tree provides different colours as the leaves turn (Mark Ward)
Eyes to the groundYou need to look down for some of autumn’s colours because the fungi displays this year have been a little bit special. There is not better purple in the UK than that provided by the amethyst deceiver, a common woodland toadstool (below). I found my first patch of the autumn beneath a handsome beech tree that was showing its first copper-coloured leaves among the summer greens (above).
Perfect purple from the gorgeous amethyst deceiver, photographed here under the beech photographed above (Mark Ward)
There were still bursts of purple-pink form the last of the heather flowers and a common darter dragonfly was sunning itself on a patch of sun-soaked sand between the bushes.
Jays are probably at their most conspicuous in October as they find, carry and cache acorns ready to eat through winter. Look out for their floppy flight as they fly with purpose between woods and lines of trees. As one flew over, complete with acorn in beak, that was electric blue and pink in the bag, but what I was really missing was a rich, ruby red. Luckily, I had a trump card to play. There is a wonderful tree in front of the main house that remarkably quickly turns bright red every autumn and it was in full autumn garb. I don’t actually know what it is, but it is a stunner.
The mystery "red" tree at The Lodge that greets every visitor to the main house - any ideas? (Mark Ward)
I know you can do much better than my efforts above, so please get snapping, get creative and send us your shots as per the instructions below. There's more inspiration from wildlife gardening guru, Adrian Thomas' shots on his superb blog which will give you loads of gardening ideas and more inspiration for capturing October's colours on your doorstep.
How to send us your autumn photos
We can't wait to see them - good luck!
Wonderful photos. So, what is the 'red tree' please