Hedgerows and woodland edges offer fruit and nuts a-plenty, a good time of year for free food if you can beat the mammals and birds to it. Hazelnuts, Rosehips, Elderberries and Apples are in their prime. Sweet Chestnuts and Horse Chestnuts are ripening fast.
Butterflies are ‘few and far between’. Late flyers such as Red Admiral, Speckled Wood, and Grayling have been spotted in and around the village. The Adonis Blue’s second brood was very short-lived this year, so those that got to see them were the lucky few.
Wheatears have been regularly spotted on Bindon Hill displaying their white rump as they fly off. The male’s plumage is less grey than their summer plumage; even their bandit-like mask fades, so they are easily confused with the browner females. Meadow Pipits are the birds most frequently flushed out of the grass this time of year; an olive-brown bird easily recognised by its sharp call-note, ‘pheet’ or a triple ‘pheet-pheet-pheet’. The call of the Robin is very dominant in the village at present; these birds are territorial all year round, not just in nesting season.
It is a good time of year for Fungi; Shaggy Ink Caps, Field Mushrooms, and Puffballs have been spotted on grassy banks, (the easier ones to identify).
We have chosen Clematis (also known as Old Man's beard and Traveller's Joy) for the flower of the month. It’s heavily scented greeny-white flowers with fluffy underlying sepals laden the hedgerows. They really are a ‘joy’ to see this time of year.
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