Wood watching

Aside from Toy Story 3, mountainbiking in the Yorkshire Dales and a couple of birthday celebrations, I spent some of the weekend in my local woods at Northcliffe, sitting quietly, watching and enjoying the September sun.

I saw a nuthatch placing acorns in fissures in branches, pecking at them to get at the kernel, trying out a few variations to see what worked best. I watched speckled wood butterflies dancing through dappled patches of sunlight and basking in the late summer warmth. A common carder bee foraged on the ground, investigating dark places under leaves; looking for a hole to overwinter? Flies buzzed and the leaves sussurated in the breeze. There was a faint fungal whiff of earthy, woody decay on the air. As the sun went behind ocassional clouds a chill descended. In less than two weeks will be the autumn equinox and the summer will be gone. There's certainly a sense of the season turning.

A Muscid fly rests on an oak leaf.