An Autumn Walk

It was a mid-September morning, still summer according to the calendar, but the weather said Autumn - cool, with a blustery wind and splashes of showery rain. I walked out towards Berriew on the canal towpath, accompanied by soaring and diving swallows and house martins, chasing the insects over the dark water and the damp grass beyond. A swan and five or six well-grown cygnets relaxed on the bank.

At the Belan locks I left the canal and trekked uphill towards Powis Castle, through fields well stocked with sheep. A buzzard was mewing somewhere overhead, rejoicing in the brisk wind. Crossing the stile onto Red Lane, my eyes were caught by a flash of red across the hedge opposite - berries, firstly rose hips, then honeysuckle, with a few late flowers also hanging on, and lastly and most vividly, white bryony, the only wild British member of the cucumber family, the skeins of berries turning from green through white to a vivid orange-red. A blue tit spotted me and fled.

I passed through the kissing gate and onto the exit road from the Castle. A rough bark from overhead made me look up, to see a raven enjoying the wind. He led me towards the castle, where a band of jackdaws tried unsuccessfully to see him off. I decided to do a circuit of the gardens, having remembered my National Trust card, and was delighted as always by the well-planted beds. Having said that, I’m as pleased by the unplanned flowers that are set free just to spread as I am by the carefully placed and planted ones: in this case the Mexican daisies that spill over many of the walls (as they do over my paved area at home), the distinctive soft mauve-purple of autumn crocus naturalised in the grass below the formal gardens, and the sharper purple of clematis among the trees.

A vivid red admiral butterfly swept past me as I neared the orangery, and settled on a sweet-scented citrus flower before moving on to some nearby sedums. There was still enough warmth in the sun to please the butterflies, and I was buzzed by a speckled wood, deep brown with buff freckles and one of our more territorial species. Bees, wasps and hover flies browsed among the flowers.

I walked back through the park woods, and was pleased to spot a tree creeper moving mouse-like around the gnarled trunk of an oak. It’s said that tree creepers can only creep upwards (then fly back down), and that’s more or less true, but this one didn’t mind backing down a little way when something caught its fancy. Further on there was a redwood: not a native tree, but much loved by our native tree creeper - they hollow out roosts in the soft bark, and I think I spotted one.

Out of the park, through the town, and back home via the stately beeches of Bronybuckley Wood. In the deep shade not much grows besides ferns and brambles and the last of our woodland plants to flower, enchanter’s nightshade. Robins were singing to claim their winter territories, as I climbed the steep woodland path.