The wind's roaring like the sea. It's autumn, all of a sudden, with chestnuts appearing in the wood and leaves bleaching from green to orange. It's too easy to take trees for granted when you live in southern England, but after a few months in the prairies you come to believe it quite fanciful that woody vegetation can ever be vastly taller than a human being.

I have a youngish oak tree outside my window, and due to the positioning of my mobile home on a slope, I'm seeing it half way up, rather than from ground-height. Effectively, my bird feeders are positioned high in its branches, and that's the primary reason why they have attracted such a variety of visitors in a short space of time, from bullfinches to chiffchaffs. And, of course, the British answer to the chickadee, which is gradually becoming more cooperative





...most of the time



I've seen more marsh tits in the last week than I have in the rest of my life - in fact there's another one outside the window as I type this They are remarkably talkative little birds, and cannot seem to fly anywhere without making small, thin calls.

Other guests are not going unnoticed



Squirrels are making their presence known, and they're making it a family trip. This young one looked a bit big for nursing, but the mother tolerated it - briefly. Then she returned to the oak tree, her youngster following her like a dog on a leash.



Another youngster has proven unexpectedly bold. The bare patches on this magpie's head are probably due to moulting.



It will be interesting to see how the guest list changes as winter develops. I'm not far from Dungeness National Nature Reserve, which can attract some real rarities.

Well, not quite. It's 96 metres (315 ft), which is still remarkably high in a peninsula that is barely above sea level.



It is, unmistakably, Norwich Cathedral, the most spectacular interruption to breach the vast Norfolk horizon.





Footsteps have fallen and voices raised within these walls for the last 900 years.





Older voices are remembered.



Outside, the ancient gateway stands strong.



It is home to monsters...



...and their foes



Another gateway opens onto a building so crooked it could almost have been built in Saskatchewan


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Back on my side of town, there hasn't been too much to report. The weather has been fickle and it's difficult to fit in long walks between university work, and also between dawn and dusk, which are now almost at their closest; sunset today was 3:47pm. Winter is upon us

But here are a few photos that I've gathered recently and haven't been able to fit into other posts.

Magpies at dawn



The hiding heron



Winter valley



And the collared dove...no, it wasn't eating pilchards I bought the fish for Khamsin, who declined, so I put them outside in front of the trailcam, hoping to catch the local fox. Instead, I caught a cat and this little dove.

It's hot...bewilderingly hot for April The local weather station logged 26c (almost 80f) today



And you can no more keep foxes out of a sunny field than you can keep cats off a comfy sofa, so I went out looking for them this evening And I saw a rufous shape disappearing into the hedgerow even sooner than I expected!



She looked so small in the lane that I initially thought that she must be a wandering kit. But I looked out into the field where she was headed, and saw that she was a lactating vixen. And she was hunting, or trying to, pointing her muzzle like an arrow into the grass.



She didn't really want company...



...so I backed off, and she settled down



...becoming little more than an orange spot in the grass



I left her to her evening. But I hadn't gone very far before I saw one more orange splash in the landscape!



At least, that is what I thought until I realised that it had four ears rather than two!



They were stretched out in the sun together, as foxes sometimes do. Unlike wolves, jackals and coyotes, foxes do not hunt in groups, but they're quite happy to rest and play together. I even caught a glimpse of a third fox over by the hedgerow, my fourth on a short walk!

The larger of the two resting foxes eventually rose to his feet and explored the hedge.



But he was easier on the camera than Fox #5, who was meandering around a much bigger field. I thought I should post this photo anyway, though, simply because it has a magpie in it. Over the past few years, I've witnessed fox-magpie encounters that vary from friendship to outright war. I don't think that either the fox or I can guess what this mapgie is planning