1981 September
September 7th
A week ago the bright yellow flowers of the Ragwort plants
could be seen all along the overgrown pavement, leaves had just
started to fall and now there are now several on the ground. The
Ragwort is also starting to fade. Some Beech nuts have fallen
and small unripe Conkers. I’ve found several clusters of
Spinning Jennys from the Sycamores, and the Hawthorn berries are
beginning to ripen. In the wood puff balls besides many other
sorts of fungi can be found. All these are signs of the coming
Autumn.
Up the Back
Meadow I watched a young Fox trot along the broken wall, jump
over onto the moor and do a bounding run to safety. Young foxes
are very curious and this one spent quite a bit of time watching
me and Cindy. The fox is one of my favourite wild animals. I
would like to know more about their secretive life. If I could
live my life in the form of any other animal then I would be a
fox running wild and free over the lovely lonely moors.
September 5th
It was a dismal morning today with a grey sky and fog
pouring off the moor. It was spitting and I noticed many leaves
had fallen off the trees. There are red berries on the Hawthorn
trees but they are not yet ripe. By the well I found a dead
Orange Underwing Moth. When I went up to the barn loft I found
several more.
They are the
most colourful moths found on the farm. All the others have
brown, white, green, grey and silvery markings. There are many
lovely different patterns and different shades of these colours
but, unlike the Underwings, these moths haven’t got any bright
coloured markings. After dark it started to rain, in fact pour
down. I opened the outside door to go to the toilet and a Fox
ran across the lawn.
September 7th
The sky has been overcast all day and there have been some
showers of rain with a very cold wind blowing. On a decaying
Beech trunk I found several sorts of Fungi growing. There was
one Black Puff Ball developing on the side of the trunk.
Underneath a root, a giant White Puff Ball was growing. It was
about the size of four golf balls fitted together. On the side
some Oyster Mushrooms were growing, and some of the common
Lichen Cladonia Pyxidata. On
the surface of the trunk, a purple sub-species of
Ovidarcyria Ferruginea
and some Orange Pin Mold were developing.
At night,
when it had gone dark, I saw a massive Black Beetle, carrying a
piece of bread in its mouth, scurry across the yard. It was a
Ground Beetle.
September 13th
The weather is like yesterdays except the wind is not as
strong. I saw a pair of Curlews fly over the Tip Field and two
Rabbits run into their burrows. In the Tip on a rotten stump of
Hawthorn wood, a cluster of Crumble Cap fungi were growing. .
September 16th
The sun is shining and there is an overcast sky with
blotches of blue sky in between. There is still a strong wind.
Today I went round the reservoir again. I was very pleased and
surprised to see a pair of Shelduck swimming near the bank. I
have never seen these ducks on the reservoir before. The Oak
trees in the Goyht have small green acorns on them, besides two
species of galls.
The above entry appears to have filled
the binder, and any second one for1981 is lost. The1982 diary
appears to start in late February, so the missing volume
probably also contained entries for the first eight weeks or so
of 1982.