After the recent strong winds there are many leaves to be gathered up for the leaf mould cages and so the cycle of death and rebirth begins again. Although it’s not officially leaf-fall yet a lot of the trees were badly wind burned and have shed them early. It’s interesting that you can have one side of a tree all brown and crisped and the leeward side is still green. It Just shows how damaging the wind can be, and not just for the physical battering it can give.
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| Crab apple tree burned at one side but green at the other |
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| Thankfully the apples are OK and there's plenty of them |
I've almost filled one cage with dead leaves so no shortage of leaf mould in the future. If anyone else is doing this don't forget to bag up far more leaves than you initially have space for as the pile will reduce in size by at least two thirds as it rots down. The extra can be added when space comes available.
The geese have started to fly down from the north for their annual winter holiday. The entire population of barnacle geese from Svalbard overwinters on the Solway marshes. That's up to 30,000 birds just of the one species and it's quite a sight (and sound) when they suddenly all decide to take to the air. No goose pictures but two butterflies taking advantage of today's sunshine on the marigolds.
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| Red admiral and small tortoiseshell |
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