And so comes October. Another seven ‘random acts of wildness’ ticked off. We’re well and truly catapulting towards shorter days. But that doesn’t mean you can’t have some wild highlights and, for Week 38, mine included:
🌹 Planting spring bulbs
🐦 Watching some interesting gulls
🌳 Recapping my new-found plant knowledge
🍂 Walking through Wychwood Forest
As always, please read on if you’d like to find out more. Thank you! 😊
Monday 27th September 2021
I spent some time this evening reviewing some of the plants and trees that I’ve recently learnt. It’s all well and good using an app to find out what something is, but I’m absolutely awful at retaining this information!
There are two that I’m particularly keen to remember: the goldenrain tree and the staghorn sumac. As you can see from my notes, I’m hoping that the ‘golden bells’ raining down from the goldenrain tree will help me remember this one. For the staghorn sumac, I’ve suggested that the cones/’bobs’ look like ‘dried horns’. This is such a striking tree. I asked for help earlier in the year to identify it as I walk past one through Honington all the time. I’m hoping this helps my memory!
Tuesday 28th September 2021
I’m going to try and grow some spring bulbs again. I’d say my ability to grow things is often a little hit-and-miss but, as I learnt from The Well Gardened Mind by Sue Stuart Smith, the process of gardening and watching things grow can be extremely therapeutic. And after back-to-back virtual meetings today (quite a rare occurrence for me!), I was definitely in need of some TLC!
Wednesday 29th September 2021
On a short walk this morning, my eyes were drawn to a small group of gulls enjoying themselves in a field. I don’t really see gulls here that often – at least not on the fields themselves, though they sometimes fly over. I made a mental note of a few key features and thought I’d look them up when I got home:
- They had a pure white tail, which was very noticeable when they took off briefly to move to another part of the field
- They were rather big
- They had solid grey markings along the tops of their wings
Looking in my bird books, I think they could potentially be lesser-black-backed gulls. I wonder if they’ll spend the winter here. Or maybe they’re en route somewhere else…
Thursday 30th September 2021
Pied Wagtail by Karl Martens 
Blue to Blue by Susan Homer
I spent half an hour or so having a good flick through a book I got for my birthday this afternoon – The Book of the Bird: Birds in Art (2019). There are some beautiful pieces in here but these two are my favourites: Karl Martens’ Pied Wagtail and Susan Homer’s Blue to Blue. It was the simplicity – and, paradoxically, the amazing detail – of the pied wagtail that drew me in straight away whereas the colours of the wren and the cup made me smile at ‘Blue to Blue’.
Friday 1st October 2021
A pinch and a punch on the first of the month! Another 30 days gone. Goodbye! And, truth be told, I was feeling pretty rough this morning. I’ve been fighting off a sore throat for about a week now and it was pretty bad today. The dark mornings are also making it harder to actually get up – I keep thinking it’s the middle of the night!
Anyway, despite my throat feeling like a cheese grater, I made myself go for a short walk around the meadow and into town. And I’m glad I did. It made me realise that I’d been misidentifying hawthorn for weeks! But I’ve set the record straight now – hawthorn has small round red berries (left) and dog rose has oval-shaped red berries (right). It was such a lovely sunny afternoon and, though it didn’t cure the sore throat, the walk gave me a refreshing boost.
Saturday 2nd October 2021
I still felt pretty under the weather this morning and even cancelled seeing one of my very good friends because I knew I wouldn’t be good company. The weather didn’t help either (pun definitely intended!) and, in an attempt to keep me out of bed, it was clear it was going to be a day of ‘wet weather activities’. I can’t share exactly what I was working on yet, as it’s going to be a birthday gift, but it has nature and wildlife at its heart. The greens are a particular reflection of this!
Sunday 3rd October 2021
Sunday is usually walk day and, with the weather calming down a little and my throat feeling a lot better, my partner and I headed out to Chilson in West Oxfordshire for a walk skirting the edge of Wychwood Forest. Sadly there isn’t much left of this ancient forest – over the centuries, the land has been split up and repurposed. By 1857 there was apparently only 10 square miles left. A bit of a sorry state for a forest that used to cover most of western Oxfordshire at the time of the Norman conquest.
On a more positive note, the walk was lovely and I particularly enjoyed watching a group of red kites surfing on the wind at the edge of the forest. The views out towards Chadlington and Leafield were also beautiful.
*For anyone new to my blog, let me explain a bit more about what these posts are about. Every week I share a summary of my daily ‘acts of wildness’. This wildlife challenge was inspired by ’30 Days Wild’ and ’12 Days Wild’ from The Wildlife Trusts. The ‘356’ isn’t a typo – typically, I only thought about doing this after 2021 had already started so I won’t be able to do a full year this time. Next year will be different though! Thank you and I hope you’ve enjoyed the post!
Ramblings of a (very!) amateur artist 