Autumn, this year, has been different to many that I've seen. perhaps the cooler summer and wetter Autumn had something to do with it, but the trees seem to have been more colourful than in many years.
It took a walk round the Pines Garden this afternoon, after watching a great game of football on the box.
Some of the colours look more like New England, possibly celebrating the impending end of the disastrous eight years over the other side of the pond.
The pond was attractive but there was no sign of the Moorhen that had been seen in the gardens earlier, a comparatively scarce species for the area.
At the top of the gardens is this "shelter". It is an area for story telling and has a rather prehistoric feel to it.
The walls are decorated with some attractive "cave paintings". It was a good place to sit down and change the lens on my camera out of the drizzle.
Apart for six Magpies and a couple of Wood Pigeons I saw no birds at all in the gardens. Although it wasn't late the light faded quickly as the heavy clouds rolled over.
This is the first time I've seen a Great Spotted Woodpecker feeding on sunflower seed kernels in the garden, especially surprising as the three peanut feeders were available.
Colin Sumner mailed me to say that the scrub clearance in the South Foreland Valley was progressing well.
The main problem with chalk grassland is that it isn't a climax vegetation, so that unless the management is attentive it quickly becomes scrubbed over, and the chalk flora is lost. A good area has been cleared, but I don't know how long it will take to get back to a proper chalk downland.
Imagine this in May with a covering of flowers including several orchid species and the effort will be worth it, but it will need a lot of grazing and mowing to get back to that condition. I'm sure that the Kent Trust has been involved as they are the experts in the county at maintaining this sort of habitat.
On they way out of the Valley, passing the Pine Gardens I noticed this Moorhen tucked away under a tree. Moorhens are very common, but in St Margaret's we lack much suitable habitat for them, so it's good to get it on the local year list in January.
