An excellent summer seemed reluctant to relinquish its tenuous hold and allow autumn to close in. However, the final season of the year has definitely arrived now as a cold north easterly wind bites.

The sad sight of rusty, wrinkled leaf-miner damaged horse chestnut leaves drifting earthwards in the wind says it all.

The prospect of ash die-back is also of major concern but trees in local parks seem very healthy so far with massed bunches of seeds, or 'keys' evident.

Other trees are clothing themselves in glorious tints of red, yellow and bronze. Oaks will shed their foliage last of all.

Birds are resplendent in fresh bright plumage in preparation for winter. The robin almost glows with red as he follows me around the garden, ever eager to pick up juicy worms I dislodge before flying back to his favourite perch to resume his territorial chanting by day and night.

During the summer moult, mallard drakes looked much like the females but now as pair bonding begins, there is a world of difference in the appearance of the two sexes with the drakes sporting brilliant bottle green heads (pictured) contrasting with the plain but still very attractive females.

As the weather in northern Europe cools down, we can now expect to see the initial influx of redwings and fieldfares winging in from Scandinavia.

Sometimes it is possible to hear the thin 'seep-seep' contact calls of redwings as they fly south over our gardens during the hours of darkness.