Autumn approaches

It seems that autumn is on its way.

 There's a chill in the air in the morning and sunsets are creeping earlier too. Rowans are red with berries and our beech tree's deep green leaves are fading to a yellowy ochre.

Up in the woods the fruiting bodies of fungi are pushing themselves up through the ground and through the bark of trees. Chestnuts are growing in their thorny cases along with beech mast and ripening hazelnuts. In the patchy heathland of Covert Wood common heather is flushed pink creating a hazy carpet through the woodland floor while the floating seeds of rosebay willowherb drift across your path. I enjoy this time of year, the late summer and early autumn, where the autumn colours are on their way and you can go out blackberrying. 

I headed up to Covert Wood to try and photograph the heathland at sunset. I had hoped that the sun would fall nicely on the heather creating a warm backlight however the surrounding trees meant almost all the heathland was in shadow. I saw a small path of heather behind a pair of trees caught in the sunlight, the only patch I could see, and ran over to photograph it. I only managed one photograph before that too was in the shadow of the trees.

After what had been a cloudy overcast day it turned into a pretty sunset. Later on, once dark, glow-worms would be lighting the track back to the car from the woodland edges. But there's something about the noises in a woodland at night that spooks my mum so we headed back before it got dark.