Hello Autumn, Farewell Persephone

Today is the Autumn Equinox: the day Persephone had to return to the Underworld.

It's a good time of year.  Still warm enough to spend the day outside with the beautiful trees and you can look forward to a long evening snuggled up in front of the fire with a good book.

 

 

 

 

 

Here's what I found in my garden today:

 

 

Snails' eggs or should that be Snail's eggs?  Apparently they do lay a lot but I found thousands of them!  I lifted the turf near the pond and there they were.  Do I want that many snails in my garden?  It might explain why my small pond has a huge frog population but the amphibians are going to starve next Spring, I fear, as I collected this lot and threw them in the field (hope the farmer never discovers how many pests I throw his way!).

 

It was only later I discovered I had made a mistake.  Top chefs regard snails' eggs as White Caviar and pay up to £1,600 per kilo!  They say they are delicious fried up with herbs .... some people will eat anything! 

 

 

Unfortunately this little Greenfinch wasn't eating anything at all  today .... it has probably BEEN eaten by something by now.  It was sitting in the middle of the garden and hardly bothering when we went near it.  I had to lock the cat inside to protect the poor thing.  Finch populations have declined since 2005 because of a disease called Trichomonosis.  Infected birds die because a parasite lives in the upper digestive tract and blocks the bird's throat.  It can't eat so it starves.  We have taken the feeders down ready to wash and disinfect tomorrow in order to stop the infection being passed on.