Today marks the last day of British Summer Time, with the autumnal windy weather feeling very apt. Much as I love autumn and winter for their colours, fresh air and wildlife, there is a downside to the clocks going back: it will be dark when I drive home from work after tonight!
Autumn is, of course, a season of plenty in the natural world, with hedgerows dripping with berries and verges and field margins full of seed-rich plants. It's an important time for many of our birds and mammals as they capitalise on this glut of food to prepare for the coming winter.
Some species - including jays, coal tits, wood mice and grey squirrels - will be busy caching nuts and seeds somewhere safe, ready to retrieve them when temperatures drop and food becomes scarcer. This caching behaviour is important for the dispersal of plants too - many of our oak trees will have germinated from acorns buried, and not subsequently eaten, by jays or squirrels.
Thrushes, robins and starlings are utilising the rich supply of berries to refuel after their long migration from continental Europe, often in competition with resident individuals of the same species and other residents, like this beautiful dunnock enjoying the hawthorn berries in the North Bushes.
It's not just berries that are attracting birds to the North Bushes, though. The ripening fruit also attracts insects, and these, in turn, are preyed upon by birds such as blue, great, coal, marsh and long-tailed tits, goldcrests and blackcaps. If you are lucky, then you might also locate a scarcer migrant among them, such as a firecrest or yellow-browed warbler. I was lucky enough to get good views of one of two of the latter that were found near North Hide on Thursday, although they've not been relocated today.
Meanwhile, the finches are feeding on a variety of seeds, depending on the species. While chaffinches and the occasional brambling visit the feeders outside reception, siskins and lesser redpolls are best spotted feeding among the canopy of birch or alder trees, prising seeds from the cones on the latter. Bullfinches are regular in the North Bushes where they often feed on the hawthorn berries and rosehips, but it's the goldfinches that are putting on the best show. A huge flock of upto 200 goldfinches can be seen feeding in the field just to the north of the North Wall.
Interestingly, their choice of food appears to be the seeds of pirri-pirri-burr, an introduced that plant that we've been trying hard to eradicate for many years as it threatens to swamp many areas of grassland on the reserve.
All these small birds also attract predators, with regular sightings of sparrowhawks and kestrels hunting around the North Bushes. At least of couple of late hobbies remain too, and are best seen catching various insects around Bittern Hide or Whin Hill. We'd usually expect these slender falcons to leave by now, so they surely won't be with us much longer.
Kestrel in typical hovering pose
Our reedbed wildlife is typically elusive, and that's certainly true of bitterns and otters at the moment, although both are still being seen daily somewhere within the reedbed. Marsh harriers are usually easier to spot, either quartering over the reeds or perched in a reedbed bush. Bearded tits have been showing very well recently, but always become harder to spot in windy weather, so may be a bit trickier this week.
If you are in Island Mere Hide (mask on, of course, then you should also see good numbers of ducks and coots on the mere. Even larger flocks of ducks can be found on the Scrape along with a mix of large gull species - herring, lesser and great black-backed and possibly yellow-legged or Caspian gulls. There should also be little egret, grey heron, lapwing and a few snipe present on the Scrape.
The Dartford warblers and stonechats continue to show regularly along the dunes, while if you spend a bit of time looking out to see then you might spot a few rent geese, cormorants or red-throated divers flying past offshore.
Finally, autumn is the best time to look for fungi, and there's a fantastic selection to find at Minsmere. We've set up a self-guided fungi trail along part of the Woodland Trail for families (and adults) to follow during the half term holiday this week, so why not wander along there and see whether you can spot a bright red fly agaric with white spots (the typical gnome stool), deep purple amethyst deceiver, yellow sulphur tuft or the deep-red beefsteak fungus - yes, it really does look like a piece of steak!