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TWO OR THREE HUNDRED gulls gather on a strip of a riverside field that is being drilled and rolled.
Trees are still green, although the greens are duller, more yellowish or redder, than a week or two ago. Leaves drift down in the wind. On the old canal cutting Rosebay Willowherb has gone to fluffy white seed, and some of its leaves have turned flame red and yellow. An alternative name for Rosebay is Fireweed, but this refers to its ability to colonise burnt ground, rather than the autumn colour. The Bracken below, protected from extremes of temperature near the water, has yet to turn gold and tan.
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A Dog Rose bush by the copse has hips that are bigger, redder and glossier than those dotted about on the tumbling mass of Field Rose further up the lane in the hedgerow. A tiny club projects from the end of each Field Rose hip, the shrivelled remnant of the stigmas, which are fused together.
Three small flies are making the most of one of the last few bedraggled blossoms on the Bramble.