Fruits

12 Sunday Sep 2021

Posted by sconzani in autumn, plants, trees

Tags

#WildflowerHour, autumn berries, autumn colour, autumn fruit, berries, drupes, fruits, hips, rose hips

This was @wildflower_hour’s tweet announcing this week’s #WildflowerHour challenge:

Samaras, siliques, nuts, drupes, berries, hips and capsules, how many different types of wild fruit can you find? That’s the challenge this week for #WildflowerHour. Share your pics this Sunday 8-9pm using the hashtag #fruits.

I’m saving my samaras, siliques, nuts and capsules for another day but here are my drupes, berries and hips: an assortment of Black bryony, Bramble, Buckthorn, Crab apple, Dewberry, Red-osier dogwood (with vivid red stems and white fruit) and Common dogwood, Guelder rose, Hawthorn, the hips of Japanese rose (these grow wild at the local country park) and Dog-rose, Sloe, Whitebeam, Woody nightshade and Yew.

Blackcap in Elderberry

01 Wednesday Sep 2021

Posted by sconzani in birds, trees

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

autumn berries, bird migration, birding, Blackcap, Blackcap eating Elderberries, British birds, Elderberry, Sambucus nigra

It’s not only humans that like to go foraging for ripe berries in the autumn. Though the raw berries of the Elderberry tree (Sambucus nigra) are mildly poisonous to mammals, they do not seem to affect fruit-eating birds, and Blackcaps, in particular, love to feast on them. This beautiful female had interrupted her migration journey south to top up her tank with their succulent goodness.

210901 blackcap (1) 210901 blackcap (2) 210901 blackcap (3)

Wayfaring berries

09 Monday Aug 2021

Posted by sconzani in plants

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

autumn berries, berries, British trees, tree berries, Wayfaring tree, Wayfaring tree berries

I’ve been resisting taking berry photos, trying to deny the fact that the days are shortening and the summer heat slowly fading, but I have been watching the Wayfaring trees I featured earlier this year, in the post The Wayfarer, and I couldn’t resist documenting how the glorious flowers from May have gradually been developing into luscious shiny red berries.

271/366 Tooty fruity

27 Sunday Sep 2020

Posted by sconzani in autumn, trees

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Tags

autumn berries, autumn colour, autumn fruit, berries, fruit, hips

‘Autumn is the mellower season, and what we lose in flowers we more than gain in fruits.’
~ Samuel Butler, The Way of All Flesh, 1912.

200927 1 cotoneaster 200927 2 snowberry 200927 3 spindle 200927 4 hawthorn 200927 5 japanese rose 200927 6 sloe 200927 7 guelder rose 200927 8 dog rose

248/366 The bramble eater

04 Friday Sep 2020

Posted by sconzani in birds, nature, plants

≈ 3 Comments

Tags

autumn berries, birding, birdwatching, blackberries, bramble, British birds, Cosmeston Lakes Country Park, Pheasant, pheasant eating blackberries

A rustle of vegetation … an eye … who’s this lurking behind the ‘snipe paddock’ fence at Cosmeston?

200904 pheasant (1)

A female Pheasant? A common enough bird in the local countryside but not normally seen here in this dog-full park. She has quite short tail feathers and she’s not too bothered about my presence so I presume she’s a juvenile.

200904 pheasant (2)

It seems she’s quite partial to blackberries.

200904 pheasant (3)

Are there more of those delicious treats?

200904 pheasant (4)

Aha, yes, another ripe one.

200904 pheasant (5)

And, after scoffing those couple of berries, she wanders off in search of more.

200904 pheasant (6)

227/366 Guelder rose

14 Friday Aug 2020

Posted by sconzani in autumn, nature, plants

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

autumn berries, autumn colour, Guelder rose

You thought I was joking with yesterday’s post about autumn arriving early this year, didn’t you? Well, the gorgeous colours of this Guelder rose look very autumnal to me. Bring on the glorious shades of autumn!

200814 guelder rose

336/365 Birds and berries

02 Monday Dec 2019

Posted by sconzani in birds, nature, plants, winter

≈ 4 Comments

Tags

autumn berries, birding, birds eating berries, birdwatching, blackbird, British birds, Fieldfare, Mistle thrush, Redwing, Song thrush, winter thrushes, Woodpigeon

It’s only been a few weeks since I saw my first winter thrushes of the season but now they’re everywhere, feasting on autumn’s bounty of lush, delicious berries. Song and Mistle thrushes, Blackbirds, Redwings and Fieldfares and, not a thrush, the Woodpigeons are also indulging in the berry-fest. The Redwings are particularly skittish but I’ve managed to sneak up on a few to grab photos, though, more often than not, the whole tree I’m trying to approach will suddenly erupt with birds flying off in all directions. And then I feel a little guilty about interrupting their repast.

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305/365 Autumn decay

01 Friday Nov 2019

Posted by sconzani in autumn, nature, plants

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Tags

autumn berries, autumn colour, autumn decay, berries, rotting berries

191101 decay

‘Autumn wins you best by this, its mute
Appeal to sympathy for its decay.’
~ Robert Browning, Paracelsus, scene 1

270/365 Clusters of berries

27 Friday Sep 2019

Posted by sconzani in autumn, nature, plants, trees

≈ 6 Comments

Tags

autumn berries, autumn colour, berries, black berries, red berries

190927 berries (7)

‘On the motionless branches of some trees, autumn berries hung like
clusters of coral beads, as in those fabled orchards where the fruit were jewels …’
~ Charles Dickens, The Life and Adventures of Martin Chuzzlewit

Berries and birds

25 Saturday Nov 2017

Posted by sconzani in autumn, birds, nature, plants

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

autumn berries, berries, berries and birds, berry eating birds, birding, birdwatching, Song thrush, thrush

In recent days, on my regular walks, whether in suburban streets or in the local parks and nature reserves, wherever I see berries there are birds, usually thrushes, gobbling down as many berries as they can find.

171125 Thrush and berries (1)

A Song thrush found its golden treasure trove in a tiny, but well-planted-for-wildlife garden amongst the apartments of Penarth Marina, and, below, this thrush, at Cosmeston Lakes Country Park, looked to have chosen a berry far too big for its beak but it persevered and, eventually, by applying a little pressure to squash the berry a fraction, down the hatch it went.

171125 Thrush and berries (2)