So, when does autumn feel like autumn? For some it is the shortening of the days, the damper, crisper mornings, the dew hanging heavy on the fly-laden jewels that are the webs of mature spiders that drape over the vegetation in countless hordes. For others it is simply the fact that shorts have to be discarded in favour of trousers! And for many birders, I suspect it is the variety and behaviour of the birds that appear on the local patch...

Thursday morning saw John Buchanan and I grabbing a couple of hours from seemingly over busy life schedules to take a walk from Maldon Prom to Limbourne Creek...and for the first time it felt just like autumn! Small flocks of Meadow Pipit bouncing through the sky above our heads, their typical contact calls, usually the first sign of their presence, a Goldcrest flitting along the edge of the copse on the old dump, calling incessantly to any others of its kind nearby, two Stonechat zipping around on top of the seawall with a couple of Lesser Whitethroat and a Blackcap in tow, although this was a 'Browncap', a female/immature with a brown head whilst loose flocks of Swallow nonchalantly drifting south twittering as they went. And waders, be they the dapper juvenile Curlew Sandpipers on the river (in all ten birds, four being youngsters) or a small flock of Snipe towering rapidly off Limbourne Creek or the Green Sandpiper tucked up asleep in the same place...yes, autumn has definitely arrived...