[Bazmundo]

First fallen conkers seen yesterday, although I haven't been through that copse for over a week so I can't say exactly when. Very healthy looking though.

[Dave K]

A stroll through the woods today, still surprisingly green on most of the trees, masses of fallen sweet chestnuts, acorns and beech masts. Turning of leaf colour still limited to a few species. Very dry ground underfoot, normally I'd expect it to be more muddy and mucky but even in deep woodland the ground was rock hard. Saw a small dragonfly and a red admiral butterfly too.

Still some flowers in bloom but blossoms are becoming much more scarce now.



Self heal

And some fungi - all nibbled to some extent - which I'm not even going to attempt to ID except the last one looks like a puffball (about 5-6 ins / 15cm across). The first two in mixed deciduous woodland (oak, beech, sweet chestnut mainly), the bottom two out in the open on grass field. Needless to say I left them well alone.

[Bazmundo]

Spotted two trees completely barren of leaves today, interestingly both saplings about 12-15' high. Likely as a result of the winds as it was after the passage of the cold front.

[Dave K]

Very few trees now not showing some degree of leaf turn, or in the case of the horse chestnuts very few leaves left at all. The big old ash tree over yonder is just showing hints now, with ash usually the last to leaf burst in Spring and the last to turn in autumn.

[Bazmundo]

The vast majority of deciduous trees now averaging around 95% bare round here, varies based upon topographic location. It'll probably only take one more good blow to shed the remaining leaves. Oddly enough, I've still got roses blooming.

Also noticing more familiar V-shaped flocks departing yesterday whilst the skies were clearer (that is to say, they were visible not that they were waiting for the conditions to improve lol).

[JOKE_SNOW]

Saw these chaps on the local reservoir a week ago. We have a couple of reservoirs locally so on most autumn evenings you can hear the wildfowl flying through the valley heading northwards. No doubt towards Martin Mere or the other protected marshland areas around Cheshire and Lancs where they congregate.

[rosskesava]

Today while driving past a field I noticed what looked like a large flock of startlings except it didn't look right so I turned around and went back to take another look.

It wasn't starling but hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of crows. I've seen large groups of crows and magpies before at around this time of year but this time the number of crows was mind boggling.

[Paul Corfield]

Still seeing Red Admiral butterflies down here on the south coast, saw 2 in the garden on Tuesday and one in the garden today visiting the old fruit on my grapevine.

Paul.

[Foxy2]

Should we start a Winter Calendar?