Mother nature's twists and turns

By Renee Hockley-Byam BBC Essex

Collared doves are just one of the visitors to Renee's garden

BBC Essex's nature watcher Renee Hockley-Byam is recording her autumn observations of the changing season.

This week she has seen at close hand the twists and turns handed down by mother nature.

On a positive note Renee witnesses the variety of birds on the feeders in her back garden and the rare sight of some healthy elms in a Silver End wood.

This is in contrast with having to deal with dealing with an injured collared dove attacked by a sparrowhawk.

Week Six

Monday, 9 November

Went to Silver End to record a BBC Essex Nature Trail for 13th November.

Was very surprised and delighted to find, in Tarecroft Wood, a stand of large Elm Trees which have survived the Dutch Elm Disease epidemic which changed the look of our countryside for ever.

Tuesday, 10 November

With the colder weather, the bird feeders in my garden are very busy with great and blue tits, a solitary coal tit, chaffinches, greenfinches and goldfinches.

The goldfinches are being very aggressive towards a couple of collared doves which have taken to perching on the nyjer feeders.

Whitebeam berries prove very popular with the local wildlife

I fixed a tray underneath the feeder because the seeds that fall to the ground very quickly sprout and grow, but of course it has made it pretty simple for the doves to feed and I am using twice as much seed as before!

All of a sudden, there are loads of blackbirds here too, probably migrants from northern Europe moving in for the winter.

They have been enjoying the berries on the Whitebeam in the garden, but it was very sad to hear a thump on a window and find a young female with a broken neck - and that's despite having stickers on most of our windows!

Wednesday, 11 November

It was off to Cudmore Grove Country Park on East Mersea this afternoon to record a Nature Trail for next week.

Dougal Urquhart, the ranger there, is a moth enthusiast, so who better to talk to about the decline in numbers.

I have shared a couple of evenings with him at the country park checking what he has caught (temporarily of course) in his moth traps.

It was also a good chance to see the increasing numbers of wigeon and teal that have arrived on the island to spend a relatively mild winter there.

On arriving back home the local sparrowhawk was on our drive - tucking into a collared dove, which wasn't yet dead!

Badgers are curious animals, as one teddy bear discovered

My husband quickly put the poor bird out of its misery, but I left the corpse out in a prominent place so the sparrowhawk could continue its meal later.

Upsetting to see, but that's nature!

Thursday 12, November

This morning I visited a badger sett following a report that a teddy bear had been stuffed into one of the entrances!

The sett is pretty close to a burial ground and I guessed what had happened, as they are very playful and inquisitive animals.

So, down on my hands and knees I peered down into the sett entrance and sure enough, there it was... a pretty, if rather muddy, white and red teddy!

The toy had been placed on one of the graves and a badger had taken a fancy to it!

It was a fairly sunny day and it was pleasing to see quite a few butterflies at the burial ground - the flowers placed on the graves were providing them with an out of season source of nectar.