An early autumn garden safari
The weather was fine still and still quite warm so I went on a little garden safari. The garden had that distinctly autmnal feel about it. I noticed darter dragonflies perched up on reeds protruding from the pond, a few Purple Loosestrife flowers were left and a little water mint was in flower still too. In the borders the bonariensis was still going strong and here and there some flowers were trying their luck with a late flowering I noticed Ox-eye daisies Red Valerian, and Wild Carrot in particular.
The Brown roll-rim fungus fruiting bodies were fresh out and still immaculate. The radius out from our stand of birch trees was bigger this year and I noticed more fruiting bodies too, so the fungus seems to have flourished despite the drought, which surprised .
I also stumbled across a pristine pale blue-grey and black feather. I’ve not nature journalled a feather before and I was curious about which bird it might have cme from.
I noticed: It was quite large, about 15cm long and 3cm wide. It had white fluffy down at its tip and a long pale blue-grey band of fine feather filaments that then darkened to a dark charcoal colour towards the end, which was quite squared off. The quill ran from ivory white to charcoal and was positioned slightly off centre. The individual feather strands had tiny hooks that bound them to each other that were tightly interlocking still.
I wondered: If it might be a wood pigeon’s wing or tail feather. I wondered too if it was from a routine moult or an injury from a scrap or cat attack.
