So I found myself running today, a gentler pace, on a fine if autumnal feeling day. I've been overdoing running for distance and speed and not really taking in the world around me, so it felt pleasant to take in the tour of the two lakes and see what I might see.
A couple of weeks ago, swallows and martins were still around in town, even if the swifts were long gone, and a lot of garden birds were having their summer holidays. Now the hirundines seem in short supply, and more robins, blackbirds, and especially starlings are to be seen on my running and cycling routes. Small murmurations are starting to form.
The enduring, butterfly beloved thistles are over, and the buddleiahs are just hanging on in flower, but the peacocks seem to be no longer feeding off them in the numbers they were. Small tortoiseshells and whites are the commonest butterflies still on view, meadow browns and speckled woods were no longer on the wing in Beacon Hill Reserve. No dragonflies either.
It is berry time. Elder, damsons, sloes, and above all blackberries are fruiting. Everyime I head out on the roads and track of Newark, I encounter someone with a plastic lunch box full of bleeding berries, and today, there were folk everywhere. So far I've forgotten to get my folks any blackberries, but I taste them and most of them are still pretty sour despite being apparently ripe in colour.
One day, I will make some headdway with wild food.
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