Sunday 13 September 2009

Autumnwatch Update




We seem to have much better sunsets in the Autumn - these pictures were all taken on the evening of 9 September and are totally without any kind of enhancement at all - what you see is what it looked like. Just gorgeous.

The autumn spiders are also coming out to play.


The Mountain Ash/Rowan trees are covered in red berries


And fungi are appearing underfoot


This year I was given a Cynara (Artichoke) plant by the lovely Grace who lives at the end of my close. It has the most beautiful thistle-like flower (picture taken on 16 August this year):

But these have all sadly died now. However I thought the dead dry flower heads might make an interesting picture so I was taking some:

But then something bright, shiny and impossibly colourful nestling in the dead leaves caught my eye, turned out to be this absolutely gorgeous jewel of a little beetle. If anyone can tell me what it is I'd be truly grateful 'cos it's just exquisite. I got as close as I could to take a picture but I recommend that you click on the picture to make it bigger still.


As far as my two Japanese Maples are concerned, the red one is beginning to show the very first signs of changing colour, mostly in the central stem bit of the leaves:


But the yellow one is as yet unchanged:



How's the autumn shaping up where you are?

3 comments:

Welsh Girl said...

The rowan berries are amazing this year. Yesterday I watched a whole hillside blaze with red as the sun hit the hillside and lit up the rowans. Ravishing.

Elizabeth Musgrave said...

Love your sunset pictures particularly. Ours have been lovely too but I haven't got a single photograph which does them justice!
And yes to the rowan berries, they are all over the place. I might have to make jelly.

Kevin Charnas said...

Just beautiful! I love your photos. thank you.

And Mrs. Jones - Thank you for stopping by and for your comment. And it IS terrifying. It's embarrassing and terrifying. It's like the American intellect has been sabotaged, or being held captive. As an American, it's so disturbing to me. I love what I was taught that America was, and this isn't it.