OCTOBER is noted for the range of colours it produces in our gardens and around the countryside. Those colours are due mainly to seasonal changes in the foliage of our wide range of trees both wild and domestic. However, the splendid show of colour does not depend upon trees alone – our garden flowers and those in the wild also join the task of creating the renowned autumn scenery so beloved of artists, photographers, composers and writers.

We should not forget the role of our wild life in helping to produce those memorable scenes. They include the colourful flash of a kingfisher speeding above the waters of a river; other small birds of various kinds checking the trees, shrubs and plants for food or shelter; a few butterflies working among the borders of the garden or squirrels hunting nuts among the branches of a thinning oak or hazel.

As the trees shed their foliage helped by strong winds and a touch of frost, so we become aware of the changes that are rapidly enveloping our landscape and its inhabitants. Nights are longer for example, with darkness arriving ever earlier, and all around the air is cooler and perhaps fresher than in the summer months.

Those changes, which often creep upon us without us being instantly aware of them, are often reflected in our range of wild birds. Many begin to gather in flocks – a flock of golden plovers used to be a regular autumnal sight on my morning walk, sometimes delighting with displays of aerobatics that were fascinating.

Birds such as finches, the tit family, wood pigeons, wild swans and geese will face the coming winter in noisy flocks with rooks shouting from their rookeries and geese honking loudly during their V-shaped passage above our heads, sometimes at night.

Our ancestors could not see those high-flying creatures and so their inexplicable ghostly cries alarmed people on the ground. Thinking the noises came from some unearthly creatures, the people referred to them as Gabriel’s Hounds or sometimes the Seven Whistlers. It was curlews flying overhead in the darkness that produced the whistling sounds, whilst geese uttered loud honking sounds to the terror of the people on the ground. They thought evil spirits were at large.

We know that the changes of autumn have arrived when trees and hedgerows begin to shed their leaves, and when the summer visitors such as swallows, swifts, house-martins, warblers and others depart for warmer countries. In return, other species join us for the winter including fieldfares and redwings, both looking similar to our thrushes whilst native birds may fly to other parts of this country seeking food and shelter.

The onset of autumn happens every year but still we find in this season something new, interesting, colourful and memorable. The Anglo-Saxons called it Wynamonath because it was the month in which wine flowed but another name was Winterfylleth because it heralded the onset of winter.

Some of us will query the name of the month because Octo means eight and for a time it was the eighth month. In BC 713, however, the Roman emperor Numa instituted a feast in honour of Janus, the god of the New Year when January and February were added to the calendar. With their addition at the beginning of the year therefore, October became the tenth month but retained its old name, just like September meaning seven, November meaning nine and December meaning ten.

Due to October’s closeness to winter in this country it has spawned a good deal of weather lore. Rural forecasters believe that a warm October heralds a cold February but if October and November are cold, the following January and February will be mild. Farmers and gardeners would ensure they spread manure on their fields to produce good yields whilst here in the north-east it was believed that if leaves clung to the trees in October and withered without falling, then we could expect a frosty winter with lots of snow. It was said that for every mist in October, there would be a snowfall in winter, the density of the mist determining whether the snowfalls would be heavy or light.

Likewise, if foxes bark a lot during October, they are heralding a heavy fall of snow although there is an old Yorkshire saying that there is always twenty-one fine days in October. I must admit I have never counted them.

And finally, today is St Leger Day which has no links with the saint of that name. England’s oldest horse race, the St Leger is run at Doncaster and is named after Colonel, later Lieutenant General Anthony St Leger who suggested a sweepstake of 25 guineas each for three-year old horses. The race was named after is founder in 1778.

'UFO' were birds

My reference to golden plovers reminds me of a cigar-shaped unidentified flying object shining in the clear morning sunlight as it swept low over some trees. I was astonished and disbelieving. Inevitably on such occasions I had neither camera nor binoculars and all I could do was stand and watch as the UFO vanished in a cloudless blue sky as it dipped behind the horizon of a forest.

Moments later it returned as silently and swiftly as it had disappeared and I could see the silvery under-parts with the October sun reflecting from them. The dark upper areas appeared to be gold coloured and metallic. A UFO of silver and gold! Who’d believe it?

And then it disintegrated into hundreds of fragments as it swept low across the fields and only then did I realise it was a flock of birds. They landed in a grass-covered field not a hundred yards from the route of my morning walk and promptly began their search for grubs and worms.

That experience revealed why some people have honestly thought they had seen flying saucers and speeding spaceships but the question that now presented itself was – what were those birds? Without the aid of binoculars it was difficult to see details but one thing was certain – they were gold above and silvery-white beneath.

It didn’t take long to identify them as golden plovers, the shining silver of their under-parts being part of their winter plumage. In summer, their under-parts are mainly black, the female having slightly less than her beau.

I’ve seen them on our moors during the summer but then they do not gather in such large flocks. There may be smaller gatherings in the mating season as several males chase one female and sometimes they are solitary. But I’ve never seen a huge flock living on the moors.

A solitary golden plover will sometimes utter its distinctive fluid notes, sounding rather like a plaintive curlew as it flies overhead. These notes can be heard in spring and summer often without seeing the caller for they are clever at diverting attention from their nests on the ground, even to the extent of feigning injury to draw away potential predators.