The subtle transition from summer to autumn - September 2007

For many species the beginnings of their autumn starts during what we may regard as the height of our summer. This is particularly obvious in migrant birds and the return passage of migrant wading birds is a perfect example. Grey plover, dunlin, bar-tailed godwits and turnstones, all clad in their beautiful summer plumages, begin to arrive on the remoter parts of the shore beyond the throngs of holidaymakers and sunbathers. These waders' short northern and Arctic summer is over and they arrive here to spend the winter or rest before carrying on with their migration south.

For many people it is not until early September that they begin to notice a distinct change from summer to autumn. There is not one particular moment that defines this change of season, more a gradual build up of subtle changes. We may notice a slight coolness to the evenings, note the days becoming shorter, the ploughing in of stubbles or feel the sunshine become softer and less fierce. The hedgerows are laden with ripening fruits and berries, orb spiders' webs decorate the hawthorns and dead hogweed stems, red admirals nectar on the mass of ivy flowers and migrant hawker dragonflies rest to sun themselves before returning to hawk for small insects. Starlings have moulted into their winter spots and the robins have commenced their melancholy autumn songs.

On the 4th September I sat drawing swallows and house martins congregating on the wires at Holkham prior to their mammoth migration to their winter quarters in Africa. As I sketched and painted I suddenly heard pink-footed geese calling. A skein of 25, fresh in from their Icelandic breeding grounds, headed towards the grazing marshes - a great sight and my earliest return date.

I always liken the feeling of excitement and joy of seeing the first pinkfeet of the autumn to that of seeing the first swallow of the spring. This year it was a paticularly nice moment to actually be watching swallows getting ready to leave when the first pinkfeet arrived. Within in a few days the numbers of pinkfeet had quickly reached three figures with small groups of up to fifty regularly arriving in high from the south-west.