I put off writing this one for so long- maybe because autumn isn't a very notable or interesting season on my river. The frantic migration of the small birds often seems to pass it by, and with the breeding season properly over the number of species I see on each visit drops.
At the start of the month of September summer wasn't quite yet over, and I saw a large moorhen chick that was still a little downy (10th) and the last of the banded demoiselles on the 3rd- some dragonflies go on throughout autumn but not these beautiful, jewel like beasts. Every year I miss them when they are gone. Five buzzards were in the air together on the 24th enjoying thermals on a warm autumn day, and from their slightly antagonistic interactions and their numbers it seemed likely they were a pair with grown up juveniles. Young buzzards can be very noisy and demanding, and take a while to get good at hunting, so I wondered if the talon swiping I was seeing was the parents trying to get them to go away and hunt for themselves!
On the 7th I went for an evening visit, presumbly hoping to spot the barn owl, but had no luck. There were many bats though, who hunt over the rivers where the insects gather- still don't know what kind they are. Also, of an autumn and winter dusk around here you might look up and see dozens of gulls passing over, all in the same direction (I think it's south), in a series of loose, sprawling v-formations. I saw about 60 on that one evening visit, they are lesser black backed gulls and presumably are going to a roost. I wish I knew where it was.
I did manage to catch a glimpse of the barn owl in an evening visit on the 20th of the month, but just as a pale shape flying in the distance. I had some early rising barn owls on my patch in the autumn and winter period of 2018-19, who would regularly fly from mid-afternoon onwards, basically in broad daylight at times. Then for the next couple of years I continued to have regular prolonged sightings of hunting birds, including an incredible three at once in January 2020. But since then sightings have dropped off and my sighting of the preening bird in February 2021 was the last I saw really well, with only a few glimpses in the dark after that. I hope at some point I get early rising owls again! As of now (Nov 2022) I'm not even sure there's a barn owl on the territory at all.
The best thing about September at my patch is the return of the kingfisher. There's no suitable breeding sites on my river- they need a sandy bank for their burrow- so the kingfisher disappears every spring to find a good site and pair off. Then in September I'll hear that familiar whistle and see the little blue streak of this magnificent river bird whizzing past, back on its winter quarters. This stretch of river is clearly a territory for one kingfisher only (though of course it's likely to not be the same one each year), as I've seen the territory holder loudly and viciously chase off rival birds!
And that's all for September- not much to say! I haven't even talked about most of my dragonfly records, I saw a lot but my IDs are probably all wrong. I'm still not great at dragonfly ID but I was much worse last year! I will say that September can be a good time to watch fish on my river, as the sun is still shining on the water enough to see them and the river isn't fast and swollen enough to hide them. This month there were some sizeable spotted brown trout, a beautiful grayling male showing off his long rainbow back fin, and a small group of roach, including one with a fair sized sore on its back. I think I saw a documentary once about fish in the UK spending time in clean, running water to ease healing of sores and wounds, so I hoped my river was clean enough to help this roach heal.
Flower drawings this month include some from a lovely trip to South Devon, so include some coastal ones: fleabane, lady's bedstraw, broad-leaved willowherb, red bartsia, redshank, thrift, sea campion, common catsear, scentless mayweed, greater knapweed, betony, toadflax, wall lettuce, hedge bindweed, creeping thistle, nipplewort, and a mystery hawkweed (mouse-ear hawkweed??).
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