This last month we have seen rain, some very high winds and frost. Many fields have been ploughed and the young corn is starting to grow. The sap in the trees is no longer rising and the leaves are changing colour. If we continue having hard frosts and strong winds the leaves will quickly fall. Although the cold clear nights will bring frosts we can hopefully look forward to some beautiful dry days with blue skies.

Frost on oak leaves

The farmers will be attending to their ditches and hedges if they have not already. This is the time for traditional hedge laying and coppicing to start and continue until March. It is also a good time to clear the ditches and water run-offs to help the fields stay well drained. Farmers ploughing near watercourses should leave buffer strips to help reduce any soil erosion from silting or polluting them. It is also good practice to fence off watercourses from livestock to prevent overgrazing, trampling and soil loss, which can be damaging to fish.
Despite the strong winds there are still plenty of fruits in the woods and hedgerows for the birds and animals to feed on like the Haws, Sloes, Spindle berries and nuts such as Sweet Chestnuts and Beech Mast

Purging Buckhorn Rhamnus catharticus

Look out for the Purging Buckhorn (Rhamnus catharticus) when you are out on the Downs. This small tree derives part of its name from the fact that in the past its berries were mixed with its bark to make a powerful purgative. The other part of its name comes from the resemblance of the thorns that it bears looking like young roe bucks antlers. The fruit can only be found on the female trees. In the past the wood was burnt to make charcoal and then used for smelting iron and it was also used as part of the ingredients for gunpowder.

With the wetter weather and less flowers to look out for you may notice a number of mainly green plants appearing succulent that are known as the mosses. One group of the moss family is called Sphagnum.

Sphagnum Moss

There are a number of Sphagnum species that can be found in wet places like bogs, pond edges, ditches, wet flushes and wet woodland. They have been used for many hundreds of years. The main reason is because of the plants ability to absorb water in great quantity. It has been used for wound dressings especially in wars when bandages were scarce. It is fairly sterile because of the acidic conditions it lives in. It also is believed to have healing properties. Over the years it has been used to line clothes, hanging baskets and even baby nappies.

Hogweed Heracleum sphondylium

There are still a variety of flowers that are in bloom, which are good for the late flying insects and when they become older they have numerous seeds that the birds and mammals can eat. One plant that is out for most of the year and out now in a few places is the Hogweed (Heracleum sphondylium). This plant was fed to pigs in the past and is said to be part of the origin of its name. However, if you ever get a whiff of this plant on a hot day you will smell its resemblance of a pigsty. This smell combined with the large flat platform of white flowers attracts numerous insects to feed and mate on its surface. Back during the summer you would have seen a variety of beetles on this plant mainly the bright orange soldier beetles.

Fox Vulpes vulpes

At the end of this month you may hear the blood curdling howls of the Fox (Vulpes vulpes) at night. These sounds really do sound eerie however it is the sound fox's make when attracting a mate. The courtship of foxes carries on through the dark months of December and January. When a male dog fox finds a female vixen fox they will follow each other around and if they like each other then they will play and howl all through the evening. The vixen is only receptive to the dog fox for three days and then it will not be until March that she will give birth to her young fox cubs.
The fox is an opportunist and feeds on a variety of things in the wild like rabbit, rats, mice voles, insects, and worms. Also during the autumn they eat apples, berries and nuts. However, they will also eat carrion, ground nesting birds, pheasants, chickens and young lambs. So generally they are not too popular at times with gamekeepers, farmers or even householders that have the occasional dustbin raided.

A reminder to any one having a bonfire in the next few weeks is to remember to check old piles of wood for any mammal that could be hibernating there like mice and hedgehogs before you set light to them. It is always best to build a fire anew to avoid this happening.

Next month I will tell you about the many things you can still look out for in December.