Leaves

For the last few days we've been enjoying some of the UK's best weather, clear days of sunshine followed by cool, starry nights, with only occasional cloudy spells - inevitably some when an aurora is visible! Most of the leaves of the deciduous trees have now fallen, accumulating....

....in brittle piles along the paths and roadsides, in places to some depth. I'm not too old to enjoy doing what I well remember from when I was a schoolboy - deliberately wading through them, kicking the leaves aside, enjoying both the feel of it and the sound.

With the branches now much barer it's easier to see the birds. This, if you can find it, is a tree creeper, a bird which must win first prize for camouflage. I was fortunate to see it, and able to spend a few minutes as it....

 ....worked its way up a Scot's pine.

In the sunshine it's warm enough for me to enjoy my favourite pastime, sitting on a bench watching the world go by. I consider this to be one of the few perks of being old, though it is a bit depressing when, after having sat on this bench overlooking the A9 for almost half an hour, I realised I hadn't seen a single bird in the uncut areas between the paths and the road, even though there were masses of seeds available from a variety of plants.