Annabel and Dave's Awesome Adventures: Autumn colours

Is it winter already?

As well as seeing fireworks I was also really keen to see some autumn colours. I was a bit worried that I might have left it too late and missed the leaves turning. On my walk to the train station each morning, there are a few trees, but they all lost their leaves back in October when we were still having 30 degree days. So I didn't really have any concept as to when normal trees start losing their leaves. We planned a big walk, from the north side of Hyde park, through Green park, past Buckingham Palace and St James' park down to the river for the fireworks, with hopefully a pub stop for lunch and hopefully some colourful leaves.

Now there was a lot of "atmosphere", which means there was some serious moisture in the air.

Guess not, still autumn here!

Whilst you don't really notice it in real life, the camera sure loves it, so there was a bit of lightrooming going on with some of these. Apologies if they are over-saturated.

Dave admiring the leaves

As well as awesome colours the squirrels were going crazy too. Everywhere we looked they were scampering all over the place. They don't hibernate during winter, so in autumn they have to put on 10% of their body weight in fat. There were some seriously plump looking squirrels out there, but still fast enough to beat the dogs. In winter they have to eat nearly every day, but if the weather is particularly bad they may take a day off, which is why they need that extra 10%. The ones we saw were only greys though, the reds having long since disappeared from London. The greys carry squirrel pox, which they are immune too, but the reds aren't, sounds like the colonisation of America only in reverse, and with squirrels.

What a delicious peanut

There are still pockets of red squirrels remaining, in Scotland in particular. In fact there is a little island in Poole harbour, on England's south coast, called Brownsea Island. This is meant to have about 200 individuals living there. We were planning a squirrel hunting trip there, but it turns out the island is closed (I

Leaves!!

didn't know islands could close) so we are going to have to wait until next February to see our first red squirrel. I think though that they might be even more active then, as February is mating season, so definitely looking forward to that adventure!

We also learned that the squirrels love peanuts, just the raw ones still in their shells. So I'm definitely carrying a few of them in my pockets from now on. And the bonus is if we don't see any squirrels we can just eat them ourselves.

We also witnessed a mighty duel between a big crow and a squirrel. The squirrel was digging through the ground, not sure what it was looking for, and the crow was following close behind to see what the squirrel dug up. Every now and then though the crow got too close and the squirrel rounded on it. I'd never seen a squirrel look so ferocious, the crow was definitely not taking that on!

The crow and squirrel eye each other off

The crow circles the squirrel

The squirrel attacks!! The crow is defeated. Not how I would have thought this would play out

Man, there's cameras everywhere here, even in Hyde park! Are they up in the trees or something and where are the wires?

Lovely, with a lot of atmosphere!

Princess Diana's memorial fountain, more of a circular stream really

Aren't you a nice looking swan

And your baby is looking pretty big now too

My favourite tree

More colours and birds

Upside down squirrel

After making it out of Hyde Park we came upon Wellington's arch, though you may see that it actually has a lady and four horses on top of it. It used to be instead a massive statue of the Duke of Wellington, but I think that people thought it was too ostentatious. When the arch was moved to alleviate traffic problems around here, the Duke was moved elsewhere. You can climb to the top of this arch, which we did. I love doing these things that tourists wouldn't bother doing.