As well as the dominance of the Square of Pegasus at night, there are these little increasing sights by day that colder times are ahead.
Yes I know it's getting colder. And darker. That would be too obvious. I mean the birds. The garden birds have just come back from their late summer holiday fattening themselves up country, and now my garden's family of blackbirds - the youngsters with fully developed tails but still showing a gape - are now crashing about the hedgerows.
Sadly, there is no singing any more.
As I cycle to and from work, there are other signs. The starling murumurations have not yet started, but every morning and evening, increasing numbers of starling in their spotty winter plumage, are lining up on the green metal fences at work. They look at me like a chorus of Disney characters as I scoot by.
The teasels are in seed on the waste ground by the lime clad cycle path near work. Sometimes, as I'm heading home, large flocks of tweeping and twittering finches with yellow wing bars were feeding on them. I couldn't see much detail and thought initially they might have been greenfinches, but it seems that goldfinches are far more likely teasel nibblers.
And then, scuttling about the floor doing their thing, are more and more pied wagtails. In a month to six weeks time, as I leave work in the autumnal twilight, the crap park will be carpeted with them, and in the mornings at 6am, you can see them circling in the lights of the work building. They roost in the bushes in one part of the site, hundreds of them, and the sight of them always makes me feel a little better about life.
Especially if it is when I'm leaving work when I see them!
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