You might have heard about the abundance of insects this autumn on the radio or on the television this morning. Ian Dawson, the RSPB's librarian, is a UK spider expert and thinks that the insects (and arachnids) might mean good news for our small birds this year.
Many of our smaller birds at The Lodge, like goldcrests, treecreepers and wrens, like this kind of food so fingers crossed that they'll see it through the winter.
Even though summer is long gone and it's really feeling autumnal now, there are still plenty of beautiful flowers to see in The Lodge's peat-free gardens. It's a lovely place to meander on a sunny day and make sure you keep an eye out for some of the butterflies still on the wing: small coppers, commas, red admirals, small tortoiseshells and speckled woods.
Southern hawker, migrant hawker and common darter dragonflies have been seen around the reserve this week, too.
We've still got at least one hobby zooming around over the trees and quarry, and jays have been burying their first acorns of the autumn. Now's a good time to see them, as they tend to be rather shy a lot of the year.