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Autumn Nature Adventures
A nature adventure can happen anywhere, any-time.
Autumn is a magical time of year. It’s when the autumn winds begin to blow, causing many trees to lose their leaves and drop nuts and seeds. What could be better than an autumn forage, picking up acorns and conkers and gathering beautifully marked autumn leaves?
Autumn is the time when many fascinating fungi can be found – but as some of them can be very poisonous it’s best just to look and not to pick without expert advice.
The summer visitors will mostly be long gone by now but look and listen for the sound of arriving winter visitors. Geese pass over in large noisy V’s. It may be hard to identify what sort of geese they are but you can rough-count a flock of any birds by quickly counting a patch of ten birds then block counting: twenty, forty and so on.
Look for large flocks of Scandinavian fieldfares and redwings in hedgerows and farm fields. Fieldfares are the larger species with grey and chestnut markings. They make a loud “tchack-tchack” call. Redwings flock together too. They are daintier with a white eye-stripe and a red patch under their wings. If you stand outdoors in the dark you may well hear their plaintive “seeeeep-seeeeep” calls as they pass overhead.
If you are in wild country such as the Highlands of Scotland, the New Forest, or even Richmond Park in London look and listen for fallow and red deer during their rutting (breeding) season. Red deer stags become very vocal giving out bull-like bellowing roars and jousting to gain possession of the gathering hinds.
In the woods, many creatures such a squirrels and mice are fattening-up for the lean winter months by laying-in stores of seeds and nuts. Sadly it is becoming harder and harder to see red squirrels because their UK population has been decimated by squirrel pox, a disease spread by their grey cousins. But you may be lucky, depending where you are walking. Remember – a nature adventure can happen anywhere, anytime.
Mick Manning
These seasonal nature tips are based on Nature Adventures an inspirational family nature book written and illustrated by Mick Manning and Brita Granström and published by Frances Lincoln. Specialising in lyrical non-fiction picture books Mick and Brita have developed their unique award-winning approach together over 20 years and have based this book on their own nature walks with their family of four young sons. Find out more about their books at www.mickandbrita.com.
Text copyright Manning and Granström 2011
Images reproduced with kind permission from the book Nature Adventures and copyright 2011 Manning and Granström/Frances Lincoln Publishing]