Ode to Autumn
- Clare
- Oct 5, 2020
- 3 min read
I love Autumn. The misty mornings, the smell of bonfires and the crunch of brightly coloured leaves beneath my feet. It's also a time of comfort food, woolly jumpers and cosy nights in by the fire. And Halloween of course. Our family never really "did" Halloween when we were young, though our village goes in for it in a big way and so I am living vicariously through my own children! It won't be the usual spectacle this year of course, though it will be fun to carve our own pumpkins and we will also have a Halloween hunt for sweets and treats around the garden by torchlight.
There does seem to be so much to fascinate young children at this time of year. From Halloween and fireworks to conkers, crunching leaves and misty breath, there are lots of reasons to get outside!
If you are looking for inspiration, The Daily Telegraph and National Trust have some great suggestions of places to visit:
The Wildlife Trusts also describes some wonderful experiences, from bird migrations to autumn woodlands:
Closer to home, Oxfordshire has been very wet and grey over the past few days, though there are still patches of colour dotted about the garden. Some plants, like the roses, purple toadflax and crocosmia are displaying final flourishes before the sparseness of winter, whilst other plants (such as Skimmia and Viburnum) are just starting to bloom. Overall, the flowers are certainly fewer in number, though there are still plenty to be found.
Despite being such an unassuming little flower, the clump of asters is looking particularly lovely this year and there are already whispers of pink peeking through the greenery of the Daphne Odora.
Buds are forming on my two white camellia and the berries on the cotoneaster, holly and berberis are getting fat. The latter of these shrubs contained a host of excited house sparrows earlier this week which were chattering noisily as they flew backwards and forwards between various garden shrubs.
The house sparrow has been such a frequent (and usually welcome) visitor to U.K. gardens that it's hard to believe that all out war was once waged against this industrious little bird in nineteenth century America. In the early 1850s, Eugene Schieffelin, a well meaning bird enthusiast, was among a group of wealthy New York gentlemen who imported several pairs of house sparrows into the city, principally in an effort to control the numbers of linden moth caterpillars which had been feasting on New York's trees.
The project seemed successful at first and larger numbers were imported into other cities across the States. Unfortunately, the adaptability of the sparrow became its ultimate downfall as it spread rapidly across Northern America, munching its way through grain as well as caterpillars and ousting native birds from their natural habitats.
By the 1870's the bird had been demonised and it was hunted and killed in large numbers, with several States investing large sums of money in eradication efforts. These strategies were ultimately unsuccessful, but are continued to this day as the house sparrow continues to spread to new locations.
In our own garden, I welcome the little sparrow and will happily put up with its noisy chattering and the occasional loss of flower buds in return for its company, especially as numbers have declined sharply in the U.K. in recent years. However, the story of the house sparrow does provide a cautionary tale about the introduction of species into novel environments.
Aside from the sparrow, the wildlife activity in our garden is definitely quietening down. The constant hum of bees is no longer there and the birds are generally less vocal. However, we are still visited by the occasional Cabbage White butterfly and some hungry caterpillars have evidently been feasting on my gooseberry bushes as the following image shows (healthy plant on the right, whilst the plant on the left has lost all its leaves). Closer inspection revealed a number of bright green caterpillars which I have not yet been able to identify.
As we head into October I also look forward (with a little trepidation) to finding more spiders in our home as late September/early October is mating season for house spiders. I saw the first large house spider running across the carpet this afternoon and hoped it was not the first of many this year!
The Sparrow by Paul Laurence Dunbar
A little bird, with plumage brown,
Beside my window flutters down,
A moment chirps its little strain,
Then taps upon my window-pane,
And chirps again, and hops along,
To call my notice to its song;
But I work on, nor heed its lay,
Till, in neglect, it flies away.
So birds of peace and hope and love
Come fluttering earthward from above,
To settle on life's window-sills,
And ease our load of earthly ills;
But we, in traffic's rush and din
Too deep engaged to let them in,
With deadened heart and sense plod on,
Nor know our loss till they are gone.
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