It seems that after an extremely hot start to the month, autumn has arrived with a flourish this week, with heavy rain on Friday followed by a showery weekend, in complete contrast to temperatures of 30 degrees last week. A walk around the reserve certainly has a more autumnal feel too, with much of the bracken already turning yellow, few plants remaining in flower but instead sporting nodding seedheads, and berries ripening rapidly on bushes.
The blackberry bushes are more heavily laden than I can remember for many years, and are proving very attractive to flocks of tits and finches in the North Bushes, as well as providing a vital food resource for various warblers as they prepare for the next leg of their migration. Whitethroats, lesser whitethroats, blackcaps and chiffchaffs are all still present, and we're awaiting the return of the first redwings very soon.
It's not just birds finding the blackberries irresistible with good numbers of butterflies and dragonflies attracted to the ripening fruit. Red admirals (pictured, above), commas, speckled woods and small coppers are particularly noticeable.
Of course, there are many other fruits to keep birds, butterflies and mammals happy, including juicy sloes (pictured, above) and rapidly ripening hawthorn berries (below)
When it comes to the bird world, autumn actually started several months ago, with the first returning waders arriving in mid June. Wader migration peaked in late August, but there's still a good variety of species passing through. The most numerous are black-tailed godwits, spotted redshanks, dunlins and lapwings, with smaller numbers of grey, golden and ringed plovers, ruffs, greenshanks, little stints and curlew sandpipers all seen this week. A brief pectoral sandpiper on Saturday morning sadly didn't linger long. Snipe numbers are increasing too.
One of the most noticeable differences since my last walk around the Scrape has been the significant increase in numbers of both wigeon and teal, while gadwalls are beginning to regain their finest colours. It's easy to overlook some of more familiar species, but these Canada geese, and their greylag cousins, certainly make sure that you know they're present when they start calling to each other.
Bearded tits have been putting on a great show, especially in the mornings near South Hide, though they can, typically, become more elusive int he afternoon. Bitterns, marsh harriers, hobbies and kingfishers are still being reported daily, though you do need a bit of luck of patience to spot them. Even more elusive is the great white egret that has been seen on several occasions over the last week.
While some species can be difficult to spot, others sometimes can and find us, allowing us to enjoy unrivaled views. Great green bush-crickets have been seen on the visitor centre on several days over the past week, and this one was joined by a much smaller speckled bush-cricket this morning.