The delights of autumn on Spring Park
There are lots of reasons to visit Spring Park, but perhaps the most compelling is the chance to see autumn wildlife hurriedly preparing for the oncoming winter months. The trees will soon lose their lush green leaves as the chlorophyll breaks down and varying colours of brown, yellow and red become visible; you might have already seen horse chestnut as they are usually the first to undergo this change. October rain usually yields many forms of fungi. On trees, dead wood and on the woodland floor, the large fruiting bodies of fungi are visible. Nuts and berries are also the flavour of the early Autumn months. Keep your eyes on the ground and you are sure to find hazelnuts but you’ll be lucky to find many intact as squirrels, woodpeckers, dormice and other small mammals will have feasted on them first. The hedgerows will also be bursting with sloes, hawthorn berries and rosehips all of which are tasty treats for birds and mammals. At the pond, common darters and emperor dragonflies will still be zipping across the water and frogs and toads should be feeding up on insects, slugs and spiders before finding a quiet log pile to spend the winter. |
