The last leaves are falling, a few beech boughs hanging on to golden leaves that have resisted the gales.

The open woodland has a few treasures to reveal such as the near perfect woven nest of dead grass and moss placed on a young crab apple branch two feet off the ground.

Hidden both by leaves and the rough grass and nettles that grew in summer round the tree. Bare now, whose nest was it? A diameter of four inches, it was small, fit for one of the tiny birds that flit among the woodland branches. Probably a warbler, maybe a Willow Warbler, we see those about. I wondered about a Goldcrest, but the book suggests they nest high in a tree. This nest is low and in a small tree.

Now we have sheep in our field, a large flock from a neighbouring farm, eating off the last of the summer grass. Ewes, all colour marked in blues, reds or brown, from the rams. They wait out the winter building up their strength for their spring lambing. Now it is winter with a night time temperature falling below zero.