Summer’s turning to autumn, fruits and berries are ripening. Blackberries seem to have had a good year. As I’ve been out and about, I’ve seen a few people gathering them, leaning over to brambles with a bulging bag in their hands.
Common darter dragonfly by the edge of the canal at Compton. The males (this is one) find a perching spot near water, usually highly visible so as to try to attract passing females. Then they stay on watch for other males trying to intrude on their territory, or for unwary smaller insects they can dart out and catch.
Tip of a rosebay willowherb earlier this month. Flowering now over, but the seeds not yet developed the feathery tails which will help carry them on the breeze to disperse, as “sugar stealers”.
The intermittently resident heron in West Park, spending some time on the beach on the island, catching the sun alongside geese, gulls and a magpie.
Ripening sloes in the Barley Field hedge: dark, almost black with a blue bloom.
Partly albinistic carrion crow, distinctive with its patches of white feathers, searches for prey among the short grass of the lawn in front of a block of flats on Finchfield Road.