Autumn is finally upon us with the leaves falling in earnest and I have set about trimming the hedges in our garden. As I have only made it look tidy over the past few years, the hedge has slowly got bigger and bigger so this year one side of it has been given a good pruning, resulting in a large pile of brush wood still with leaves on. Finishing my work rather late I left the clearing up to another day. Late in the evening Di opened the back door and found the Buck having a supper on the clippings.

There is much pruning of trees and shrubs to be done and the birds are now being fed, but not too much as they will queue up for it rather than bother to go foraging. Now we have started we will continue, increasing the amount in the colder weather.
A cock pheasant appeared in the garden the other day and a few days later he returned with one of his wives.  One very wet Sunday afternoon we saw quite large birds flying high, circling; they looked familiar and turned out to be seagulls come inland from the rough weather perhaps. We sometimes see them when the river is in flood, and on Cutmill Ponds.
There have been the usual foxes crossing the road at night, showing little regard for the traffic, some of them getting killed.
And finally, the Buck and his wife were strolling around the garden the other morning about 7 am. They seemed to know I was looking at them from inside the house and peered back at me placidly; if the door was opened they were off.

About this time, perhaps a little earlier, ploughing of some of the cleared cornfields would start. These days it is done with one man, a tractor and a four or five furrow plough (or more if the tractor is large) and the field permits it. When a horse, or maybe a team of horses were used for ploughing, the field had to be reasonably level and one or two furrows were all that could be achieved. Using muscle power, even horse muscle power to pull a piece of metal through the earth requires some considerable energy and anything more than a gentle slope could not be considered unless you went in for one way ploughing down the hill only which would be very slow.
Added to that you had to feed the horses which meant that possibly a third of everything you produced was used for feeding the horses.

In the beginning of November we attended the AGM of the Surrey Wild Life Trust an excellent organisation that manages about 20,000 acres of commons and other land in Surrey for the benefit of the wildlife and for people to gain knowledge of the countryside and for recreation and fresh air.

A number of speakers gave us the state of The Trust in terms of what they had achieved, the state of the finances and anything else they thought may be of interest. We also learned that Surrey has the rarest creature in the whole of the UK. There is thought to be only one site where it is found and the creature is the Red Barbed Ant.

Otters are back in Surrey and signs of them have been found on the banks of The River Wey. They are rarely seen, as they are shy creatures; most sightings are not otters at all, but the similar shaped smaller and darker mink. These are unfortunately much more common and very aggressive.

We are very fortunate to be surrounded by beautiful Countryside including Puttenham Common, Thundry Meadows, Bagmoor, Puttenham, Thursley and Hankley commons. Natural England (English Nature, as was) manage much of it but some of the management work is undertaken by Surrey Wild Life volunteers and if you would like to find out more visit the web site    http://www.surreywildlifetrust.co.uk
or contact   Surrey Wildlife Trust HQ, School Lane, Pirbright, Woking, Surrey, GU24 0JN  or ring    Tele: 01483 795440

Happy Christmas and a prosperous New Year to One and All.