After recent wind, rain and the first overnight frost, next door’s maple is going down in a blaze of ochre yellow and one of the ash trees in the wood is now devoid of leaves.
This morning two blackbirds were fighting it out over the ever-diminishing supply of sumac berries. When a song thrush flies in the spray of berries it lands on instantly detaches, plummeting to the ground and, for a moment, taking the startled thrush with it.
The small male sparrowhawk is back, again swooping down by the feeders and then pausing to perch on the hedge and again failing to catch any prey.
This morning a distant chevron of geese headed down the Calder Valley but at the weekend a skein of twenty plus was heading in the opposite direction.