Whitstable seafront lit by the afternoon sun on a high tide in October. This was taken from Shellness on the Isle of Sheppey.
Tag: Autumn
Birds of the Gulf of Aqaba and Northern Red Sea – Autumn
The northern Red Sea and Gulf of Aqaba are wild and beautiful seascapes; on exposed rocky coasts there are windy, deep blue waters lined with white horses and fringed by a coral reef; elsewhere brown and coffee-coloured sands meet calm, shimmering, turquoise bays. In autumn, the coastline holds a sprinkling of waders, herons and raptors…
Sandwich Terns at Shellness
A big spring tide on a warm afternoon is a good time to watch the waders, gulls and terns gather on the shore. There is a regular post-breeding congregation of Sandwich terns and their raucous calls fill the blustery air. The terns fly up and down the shoreline and out into the bay sometimes returning…
Autumn
When the sun breaks through on a stormy day, the old hedges of thorn, ash and dying elm appear green and golden above the rich brown fallow fields. The skies over these open, chalk downs are, on some evenings, briefly dramatic before the sun drops into the dusk.
Autumn inkblots
Like so many country estates, the large back garden at Sheffield Park is a display of the most fashionable trees and shrubs brought in by Georgian and Victorian plant collectors, especially from the remotest and most inaccessible temperate forests in the Far East and Far West; the seeds were as prized as moondust. Gingkoes sit…
Summers up
A few images from a long hot summer that has now drifted into a damp and mellow autumn. Our local chalk grasslands are always rich in wildflowers and the diversity seems to be improving especially with a profusion of bee ochids in July. The green wheat fields turned yellow in the long summer drought; today…
October at Oare
A pale clouded yellow dances in the breeze on the sea wall and after many attempts finally settles in the couch grass, small whites are also on the move, nectaring on the last sow thistles. The clear autumn skies and gentle warmth put the wintering flocks of godwits and redshanks at ease; there is no…
Scabious and ivy
As the autumn equinox arrives, the downs are browning and the last flowers support the last insects. The slope at Fackenden is now thick with summer growth; the marjoram and other summer flowers create dense blankets of green growth with a few flowers; the autumn gentian has gone over and only the devil’s bit scabious…
Old Tapestry New Forest
The Forest is quiet in September; woodpeckers, crossbills and siskins break the silence in the ancient woodlands and conifer plantations. The heather on the open heaths is at its purple peak and the summer crowds have waned. In the late afternoon, ponies and donkeys start to move to forage on the roadsides, and cause a…
Penshurst Place
Penshurst Place is one the finest manor houses in England; it sits in the heart of the Weald at the confluence of the Rivers Medway and Eden, surrounded by wooded hills and ridges. On a fine autumn day, the house and the grounds look like something out of an 18th or 19th century painting.
Autumn at Chalk Cottage
The sun is out at lunchtime lighting up the hedgerows; the autumn insects are feeding on the abundant ivy and there is a surprising diversity of wasps, flies and hoverflies. In the evening, the lanes are in deep shadow but the sun hangs bright low over the downs until a huge grey cloud inches across…
A little bit of Broadstairs
17th and 18th October A grey Saturday is followed by a bright morning. The last swallows and sand martins are chasing up and down the cliffsides; rock pipits are on the beach and sea walls. A flock of linnets feed on the weedy flora above us. A huge dog chases a small flock of turnstones…