Spring is nearly here!

[pollygog]

Now cold and abandoned
The mud-cups that bore
Fledged swallows departed
For Africa's shore
PL

Kicking my feet through the drifts of recent fallen dry leaves under the huge towering Black poplars and Horse Chestnut trees on The Common yesterday, it looked and smelt to me the first real taste of a proper autumn.
On my stroll through the trees, I noticed freshly opened prickly green conker shells scattered among the leaves and on the path, squirrels, or little lads have been busy?
The Elwy was running low and swift with the odd fallen leaves floating down the river, little burnished golden boats in the bright morning sunshine.
How relaxing it was in the warm sun leaning on the rail of the wooden viewing platform gazing across the tawny river at orange berry laden Rowans.
They are mature trees planted round the play area at the back of the Dr's surgery on The Roe.
Watching our two dogs, their tails wagging in glee, having their morning constitutional, enjoying their exploratory wade and drink in the river.
The gleaming white limestone shingle strand in front of the platform now extends to the middle of the river, it's never been this low for quite some time.
Just up from the platform we came across our tame female Goosander working the pool just before the ancient A525 stone road bridge over the Elwy , you can quietly approach her within 30 feet before she slowly swims away.

I was busy this last week clearing away dead and dying plants around the garden and I moved a very large polypropylene sack full of dried hedge trimmings ready for burning and I discovered two adult female Great Crested newts and a small frog about an inch long hiding in the damp debris underneath.
How easy if I hadn't noticed them hidden underneath the damp debris and burned the trimmings as I intended!
I moved them to the wildlife pond but one newt was back the following morning.
Caveat here is, if you have a bonfire this time of year, inspect it for live residents thoroughly before you light up!
The cattle and sheep in the field at the back of the garden had an extra treat when I was clearing up over this weekend, I threw all the damaged windfalls over for them, the wary sheep won't come within 50 feet but some of the more friendly bullocks leaned over the fence and ate apples right out of my hand.

[pollygog]

OCTOBER
O hushed October morning mild,
Thy leaves have ripened to the fall;
Tomorrows wind if it be wild,
Should waste them all.
Robert Frost.

What a difference a day makes!
Last Friday morning, it was dry and warm-ish but a bit breezy when we walked the dogs by the Elwy, it was still low and tawny coloured below us as we crossed the new steel Pont Begard bridge at the back of the library. I was amazed to see three young adult Goosanders diving in the pools close to the bridge, never seen that many together on the river.
It must have been a family brood because a few hundred yards up was our tame female feeding in the pool by the viewing platform, how lovely a surprise was that and I never had my camera!
We missed Saturday morning because of the heavy rain (that filled my water butt overnight) and dived out Sunday morning in between showers, what a dramatic change.
The turbocharged river was now hurtling through, khaki coloured and high up the banks, laden with leaves and branches ripped off in the wind. What had been a dry shingle bank by the viewing platform was now covered by the river, lapping right up to the legs.

On a brighter note! I caught my best ever Brown Trout at Chirk yesterday, typically, I never had a touch all afternoon from 1.0pm till 4.30pm, but my fishing companion Frank pulled out three American Brook Trout and missed several others. I moved up the Ceiriog and hooked into an express train of a fish.
Having a four pound tippet on made me very nervous with this fighting fury but eventually I netted and weighed it, three and a half pounds, a best for me for a wild brown trout and guess what, I'd not changed the battery in my camera, dead, flat as a pancake!
Ah well, you win some.

[roselanekoi]

I'm always a bit suspicious of these fisherman's tales of catching record fish when the camera has a flat battery.

[pollygog]

Thanks for that Colin!
My angling companion took a pic with his phone, as did another fly fisherman from Rainhill Stoops nr St Helens, so it's capture is not unrecorded! I caught it and weighed it and put it carefully back in so I'm happy.
We fished the lakes for an hour or so after the river, for rainbows and caught a couple each, you can keep these stocked trout, so the good news is; you have a fish supper tonight Colin.

[pollygog]

from - "Dai Twm"

The rider of the Pale Horse,
His soulless eyes are fixed,
On the killing fields of Flanders,
My, how his bag is mixed.

For who will pay the Ferryman?
The Devil quotes the rate,
Two hundred thousand soldiers souls,
Sent courtesy of the State.
P.L.

My small personal contribution for 'National Poetry Day'.

[pollygog]

A Patch Of Old Snow

There's a patch of snow in a corner
That I should have guessed
Was a blow-away paper the rain
Had brought to rest.

It is speckled with grime as if,
Small print overspread it,
The news of a day I've forgotten--
If I ever read it.

Robert Frost.

The Autumn fruit bounty rapidly dwindles this month as cooler wetter and much shorter days replace the lovely balmy weather we had in September this year.
The record hottest days of summer, actually recorded this September are fading fast in the memory bank as a much cooler October busies in this week.
It's just amazing how fast the nights close in this time of year, just over a fortnight ago I was fishing in a short sleeved shirt in warm afternoon sunshine at 5.30pm.
This week I was in a heavy waterproof fishing jacket and packed in at 5.15pm because of failing light, it was a dull overcast day and colder though.
Just as the summer clothes are cleared off the shop shelves, they're replaced with winter wear and Christmas presents this month.
I was in a card shop in Llandudno today and they have a huge display of Christmas cards they have had out from early September this year, come early December the Easter eggs should start to appear at this rate!
Am I getting cynical in my old age?
Tidying up in my garden this week I found another tri-pedal frog, this time it was a small yellow frog with its left hind leg missing at the knee, do frogs have knee's?. Anyway it hopped about pretty quick and seemed quite plump so it obviously manages quite well despite its handicap.
I've seen a few dragonflies about still this last week or so, two yesterday at a large pond in Abergele, a bright blue one and a bigger brown one chasing around the reed beds in the bright sunshine.
I also saw one of those huge black green and gold ones at the lakes at Chirk on Tuesday, it settled momentarily on my rod tip then off again hunting, there was a lot of stoneflies and chironimid midges still hatching about the lake marges so it had plenty to eat.

[pollygog]

ON THE ROAD TO WATERLOO 17th OCTOBER

It is grey tingling azure overhead
with silver drift. Beneath from the green
The trees are reared, the distance stands between
At peace; and on this side the whole is spread
For sowing and for harvest, subjected
Clear to the sky and wind. The sun's slow height
Holds it through noon, and at the furthest night
It lies to the moist starshine and is fed.
Sometimes there is no country seen( for miles
You think) because of the near roadside path
Dense with long forest. Where the waters run
They have the sky sunk into them -- a bath
Of still blue heat; and in their flow, at whiles,
There is a blinding vortex of the sun.

Dante Gabriel Rossetti

Autumn manifests itself in many ways and no two seasons are ever the same; a good example is how the wildlife is interdependent on nature's fickle whim to survive through a winter!
There are a whole lot of mature oak trees growing locally near me and this year seems to be a bonus year for acorns (and also Horse Chestnuts)
The footpath along the A525 that is, the Old Denbigh Road part, has a thick virtual carpet of freshly fallen acorns along with their recently vacated cups scattered across the tarmac path and grass verges, thousands of them!
The recent heavy rain then this mornings stiff breeze has dropped a whole load more we noticed when we walked the dogs.
Seems an awful waste but lots are crushed on the road at the local bus stops as both sides of the road are overhung with large and very productive oaks.
A pair of Jays were taking advantage of the acorns this morning but flew off when we approached, they really are shy birds, not so the Robin and small flock of finches ( mostly Goldfinches) picking over the crushed acorns in the road at the bus stop.

Is this nature's bounty a warning of a bad winter? -- Wouldn't want2011/ 2012's winter again, that was horrible, for several days I could safely stand on the thick ice formed on my Koi pond.

That had been a bumper autumn for wild berries!

[pollygog]

'Cool mists in the morning, the call of wild geese,
Days quickly shortening end summers brief lease'.

How apt is that description this past week!
For the first time since I lived here a large flock (or should that be gaggle?) of Pink Footed Geese have been feeding on barley stubble in the fields almost in front of the Tweed Mill outlet. I saw a big flock of them fly over me last Wednesday afternoon and my Scottish neighbour Rob took a picture of them feeding in the field and posted it on Facebook, it's so unusual to see them here.
Word quickly got around for this rare event that by Thursday afternoon about a dozen people with camera's and tripods were set up for the geese coming in to feed in late afternoon.
The obvious place they have arrived from is the Dee marshes were they roost out on the salting's between tides every winter.
They gather in huge flocks there but they could well have arrived directly from Arctic Russia or Novaya Zemlaya that day and pretty ravenous by all accounts.
I was driving out with Nigel on Friday morning to go fly fishing at Penmaenmawr and we saw a guy setting up his tripod with one of those camera's with the huge lens you associate with touchlines at Premier League football matches, it looked an expensive piece of kit!
Speaking of Penmaenmawr we had our most successful day ever there, a total of 11 rainbows between 3.5lbs and 6lbs and as a birthday bonus for me, I was given a 9lb fish as we were leaving. A lovely memorable day and in good company.
I visited my eldest brother in Nuneaton the following morning so you can imagine, he's now got a huge amount of trout in his freezer!

[pollygog]

OCTOBER

Across the land a faint blue veil of mist
Seems hung; the woods wear yet arrayment sober
Till frost shall make them flame; silent and whist
The drooping cherry orchards of October,
Like mournful pennons hang their shrivelling leaves
Russet and orange; all things now decay;
Long since ye gathered in your autumn sheaves,
And sad the Robins pipe at set of day.

Siegfried Sassoon.

IN FOND MEMORY OF A SPECIAL LADY

[pollygog]

NOVEMBER.

The Centaur Sagittarius am I;
Born of Ixions and the clouds embrace;
With sounding hoofs across the earth I fly,
A steed Thessalian with a human face.

Sharp winds the arrows are with which I chase
The leaves, half dead already with affright;
I shroud myself in gloom; and to the race
Of mortals bring nor comfort nor delight.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.

October fades to a sad end and ushers in a thoughtful, reflective start to November as I prepare for tomorrows club members funeral and now also have my much loved brother in laws funeral to attend in the next week or so.
There's some irony in that he died in the early hours of Monday morning this week, just hours after his 3 sisters visited him in hospital in Canterbury on Sunday.
He has left a difficult task for us as he had requested that his ashes be scattered near to where he grew up in Dolgellau; on the top of Cader Idris.
We will cross that bridge though when we get to it!


The Pinkfoots continue to feed on the barley stubble in the field at the top of our road, I can hear the geese cackling whenever I go outside in the yard, when they leave they do so with a mighty roar of wings clapping and honking as they lift off, a very impressive sight and sound. I filmed them many years ago when I still lived in West Lanc's.
We had five thousand Pinkfoots and White Fronts feeding in the fields around our cottage one autumn, attracted to the feed barley the farmer had to put down to stop them eating his Asda designated carrots!
He did this in conjunction with and assistance from the local RSPB Martin Mere site. A local farmer in Bickerstaff, John Cropper had £5,000 of carrots destroyed or eaten the previous winter by the geese and so they arranged between them to put the tons of cheap feed barley down as a decoy away from the sprouts and carrots.
The local Pinkfoots have been leaving just on dusk this week, but, they where strangely absent this morning?
Saw three Goosanders again this last week on the Elwy, this time near the deep pool at the back of Foxons, in company with two pair of Mallard, they were all asleep or preening, sitting on large flattish limestone rocks, safe in the middle of the river.
The wind then heavy rain over the last few days has removed most of the remaining leaves from the huge ash trees in the woods at the back of our home and they now stand bare and gaunt above the Douglas firs. The shorter oaks seem to be mostly clinging on to theirs, except that is, for the acorns, the local wildlife seem to have removed most of them already it seems.
I think mostly eaten or stashed away for the winter, along with the Horse Chestnuts and Hawthorn berries that have vanished this last few weeks.
I saw a flock of Fieldfares on Saturday morning feeding on the overgrown Hawthorns around the woods at the back of us, they'll finish them off first and then the Pyracantha berries before they start on the Holly berries in our hedge.