Celebrating Autumn

Jersey

St. Aubin, Jersey

But then fall comes, kicking summer out on its treacherous ass as it always does one day sometime after the midpoint of September. It stays awhile like an old friend that you have missed. It settles in the way an old friend will settle into your favorite chair and take out his pipe and light it and then fill the afternoon with stories of places he has been and things he has done since last he saw you.
― Stephen KingSalem’s Lot

Windsor, England

Windsor, England

For man, autumn is a time of harvest, of gathering together. For nature, it is a time of sowing, of scattering abroad. –Edwin Teale

Bonfire

Clandon, Surrey

Spades take up leaves
No better than spoons,
And bags full of leaves
Are light as balloons.
I make a great noise
Of rustling all day
Like rabbit and deer
Running away.
But the mountains I raise
Elude my embrace,
Flowing over my arms
And into my face.
― Robert Frost

Windsor Great Park

Windsor Great Park

Her pleasure in the walk must arise from the exercise and the day, from the view of the last smiles of the year upon the tawny leaves and withered hedges, and from repeating to herself some few of the thousand poetical descriptions extant of autumn–that season of peculiar and inexhaustible influence on the mind of taste and tenderness–that season which has drawn from every poet worthy of being read some attempt at description, or some lines of feeling.
― Jane Austen, Persuasion

Westminster Autumn

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Autumn in the Victoria Tower Gardens, Westminster. In the foreground (and below) is the Buxton Memorial Fountain, commissioned by Charles Buxton MP to commemorate the emancipation of slaves in 1834, dedicated to his father Thomas Fowell Buxton, and designed by Gothic architect Samuel Sanders Teulon (1812–1873) in 1865.
In the background, of course, is the Palace of Westminster aka the Houses of Parliament, designed by Sir Charles Barry with advice from the great Augustus Pugin.

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Autumn fire

Sumach leaves
Continuing the Autumn theme, this post features images of my sumach tree. The leaves turn the most gorgeous shades of orange, red and even pink at this time of year. As the tree catches the last rays of sun to leave my garden, it is a popular spot with the garden’s minibeasts too.
spider on sumach
A few days ago, I featured a tiny green spider which I misidentified as the cucumber green orb spider. I really should stop trying to identify minibeasts because I get it wrong oftener than I get it right! I now think that little critter was nigma walckenaeri. Oh well. I am, therefore not even going to try to identify this little gem of a spider crouching under a sumach leaf. Any spider experts out there, by all means chip in! Suffice it to say it’s a pretty little thing, for a spider.
green and red spider
Here it is again, toning in rather nicely with its colourful surroundings. I was trying to get under the tree to photograph the little fellow when an altogether more conventionally beautiful surprise visitor alighted on another leaf.
butterfly on leafThis delight is a ‘small copper’. I have never seen one of these in my garden before. It rested for a few seconds, just time for me to get a couple of hasty grab-shots.
butterfly on sumach
What a beauty, its colours perfect for Autumn! Seeing it quite made my day.
sumach leaves
I was planning to fell this tree as it is in the wrong place for all sorts of reasons. It has made tons of small sumachs which I can plant in a better place. But, after all this colour and buggy action, to fell it seems rather ungrateful, doesn’t it?

Autumn suspended

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I am typing this sitting at college with the sun blazing through azure skies that one would normally expect to see in Summer, on a less contrary island. On mornings like this it seems as if Autumn has been suspended. The leaves tell a different story, however.
The first of a series of Autumnal images.