Mylander - Issue 89

28 From inside the community Nature Notes As I write, the autumn Equinox has arrived and right on cue so have the autumn crocus’s, slim, upright, proud and pretty. There is still plenty of colour in the garden that attracts the bees who remain busy. The fuchsia bush, deep red sedum and the michaelmas daisies, to name just three flowering plants. Some flowering shrubs have of course finished and have been pruned back. The buddleia attracted many more red admiral butterflies than we have seen for some years, along with occasional peacocks, small tortoiseshells, painted ladies, gatekeepers and the usual white’s. The buddleia is looking a bit bare, but is now a perfect perch for our resident robin in his new smart red waistcoat to serenade us, or perhaps to remind us he remains in the garden for supplementary feeding. The bright yellow and red berries on the very top of the pyracantha stand out brilliantly against a blue sky and will be clearly visible when the winter visiting birds arrive from the north. The blue skies that are still around fade in the late afternoon to a paler pastel shade, sometime accompanied with a faint pink tinge and perhaps a suggestion of mist. The autumn mist can be a morning feature and I recall an early morning many years ago, standing on the London bound platform at North Station, looking out across Cymbeline Meadows and seeing a cloak of mist following the meandering course of the River Colne across the meadows.