This Croston Finney morning began with powder blue skies. Summer hovered in full fields of maize, and wild pansies quietly persisted amongst the rustle of barley waiting to be cut. Later, the stubble fields, bales and temporary clouding-over showed autumn's easing in. The trees, too, were straddling the seasons; some green, some yellow, some bearing only keys.
Vocal skylarks celebrated the bounty of the fields. They approached two hundred in number and there was plenty for all. Over a hundred goldfinch likewise mustered for chatter and food. Crows, rooks, jackdaws all filled the sky with caws but none so loud as the grey heron's rasping croaks.Common darters still danced over boggy fields where three wintering snipe were flushed by my presence. How rapid their wing beats; how stodgy my steps! A small white (butterfly) also floated by.
Back on a track. Yellow hammers perched on the telephone wires, their faces bright as summer suns. Corn buntings were harvesting the stubble, their numbers yet to increase. And the hedgerows held out their hips and haws for the redwings who have yet to arrive.
October, my birth month, I love.
