Dusk. The Rooks and Jackdaws return to roost at Oxnead with a cacophony of noise. Their numbers have swelled. On Sunday night I tried to count them, but soon gave up. There must be 1500 birds or more in the gathering flock. Their flight lines ebb and swell like Starlings. Pouring into the Poplars they continue to call until one certain point when they are settled and silence floats down. The dark descends and they are quiet until first light – or so it appears.
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Early Autumn roost
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Mute swans plan ahead
Mute Swans in late November are planning ahead. Walking along the Bure this morning, I noticed a lot of swan activity. Bow-waving Cobs chase one another to defend a stretch a river; with wings raised, neck arched in sprung strength and with the chest thrust forward the dominant male makes short work of his younger rival.
Above Burgh Mill, a younger pair seem totally engrossed as they face one other in mid-stream, their mirrored necks forming a perfect lyre shape. They pay little heed to our passing. The scene is repeated by another pair beside the little footbridge over the Mermaid.
With these scenes of ritual choreography it is so clear why they are the inspiration for human dance.
Elsewhere the dullness of the day is emphasised by the tap of falling leaves. The trees will be bare soon.
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November full Moon
The full moon of Thursday night was a truly wonderful sight, sailing over the eastern Brampton sky at just the right elevation for a garden telescope-based view. For half an hour, until the cloud cover put an end to proceedings, we moved amongst the brightly lit craters, seas and mountains of the Moon. Tonight the Moon was escorted through the sky by Jupiter – a contrasting scale of distance but this evening she failed to draw us away from the main subject.
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Early silence
A brief moment of silence this morning, broken only by the gentle contact calls of foraging flocks. Firstly a small flock of Redwings announce their presence by a their gentle sub whistling calls only to be echoed by Bullfinches. Now the time has come for wintering birds to make use of the bounteous supplies of seed or berry before times get tougher. As yet no frost of any significance has softened the sloes, so it is likely to be the hawthorn berries which are popular, for the Thrushes at least.
The Ash trees have dropped their leaves this week – thus joining the Poplars which are always the first to succumb. the Oaks are hanging on but they are looking isolated in a the
bare-branched ash lined railway. -
Leaf fall
The wind changed direction and blew steadily from the south east earlier this week. This change of angle served to strip the leaves from the poplars that line the Oxnead Road as well as those on the railway line. Hitherto for some weeks the prevailing westerly wind had
failed to dislodge leaves – perhaps they were not quite ready. The arrival of some rain may have helped – trees need the movement of water in order to force the issue. A dry period merely desiccates the tree into a kind of suspended state.Other trees are clinging on, although the Field maples have dropped a few of the chrome yellow leaves.
Autumn maple leaves The Ash and the Oak hold on. They must be getting some energy from doing so, but I can’t help thinking that this must be minimal.
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Roe into November
As November commences the Roe Deer have regrouped. the Brampton group comprises of the young buck, now in his second year, the doe and the twin fauns. The doe is the most confident and the least flighty, the buck and the fauns compete to be the first to run off if they feel that they are being threatened.
Each individual’s pelage or coat has lost its rich red of the summer and has settled into the dark grey brown of the approaching winter. The buck retains his antlers now whitened and worn, for the time being at least, although it is likely that he will shed these later this month.
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Autumn evening sky
On Friday night the autumn sky was at it’s best in the early evening. Jupiter was rising over Oxnead.
In the west a star flashed with so much red and green that at first we mistook it for an aircraft. It was eventually identified as Arcturus, one of the brightest stars in the night sky and part of the constellation Bootes. It was sobering to learn that the star light which we saw was leaving it’s source, over 200 trillion miles away, when Abba released the single ‘Waterloo’ – although this meant more to Helen than it did to me. To find this star we followed the direction tail of the plough in a gentle curve.
After all this deep space thought it was a relief to call in at the village club for a beer and game of darts. -
Autumn sets in on the Common
This morning a walk along the Bure revealed how the damp autumnal season has settled in. A pair of Wigeon spring from the river at our approach. A duck more commonly seen on the large grazing marshes of the north Norfolk coast or the Yare valley, they had clearly found the Bure to be an attractive point to pause. Until we came along.
On the Common the cattle continue to graze for the last few days before they come off for the winter. They will soon be heading for the warmth of their winter housing. In the mean time they are doing a fine job of tidying up the last of the seasons grass.
Autumn on the Common The better the finish this season, the better the pasture will be in 2012. Along the margins there are numbers of Snipe – the small brown wader shoots off in a jinking flight with a rasping and repeating “scarp” call.
Loose flocks of Redwings skip from one thicket of berry-bearing thorns to the next. Their weedy ‘tseep’ call giving away their presence.
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October Dusk
Last night the light levels were falling at seven o’clock, but not fast enough for our purposes. It was too light for the river bats. Howver we walked the river bank as the light levels fell. Silence descended as the evening shift took over.
The light was sufficient in one way – as a pair of Mute Swans drifted upstream into the gathering dusk, we stopped at the stile and a movement caught our eye. The Otter dived and re-surfaced in a gentle arc before proceeding soundlessly downstream past us. It’s movement was purposeful and showed no sign of nerves, although it hugged the opposite bank before gliding into the gloom.
We walked back down the Street in the company of numerous Tawny Owls which broke the silence with loud calls aslively territorial exchanges. It was as if everything was active again after the unseasonable heat of the day.
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Golden horde
Sunset on Friday coincided with the evening arrival of a congregation of Golden Plover. A circling flock of forty or so birds whistled in their plaintive way. Every year they gather on the parish – I have always assumed that it is a traditional stopping place on their way south, but their stay is often a prolonged one. It is of course impossible to be certain whether we see the same flock for a number of weeks or whether we sit on a migration route and thus see many flocks passing through.
The call is unmistakeable. They often fly by starlight and their contact calls drift down from unseen groups. Surprisingly they do not seem to favour low lying pasture land as a roosting site, instead they select higher (height being entirely relative) arable fields alongside the old roman road. I like to imagine that this location has been favoured for a
long time, perhaps centuries, as it is a site offering good views and resultant protection from predators.
