Autumn: when a cold artist is awake before the sun.
The season of mists and fruit, and also birds, some tall and familiar.
Others lively, but more easily overlooked. Reed buntings warm the marshes.
Dunnocks take to the hedges.
And waterbirds of all sizes scurry across mudflats.
These are ruff, absurd and ceremonial in their summer breeding plumage but relatively low key now.
Except for one – this ruff is partly leucistic, hence the white feathers on its head and neck.
They are visitors here; very few ruff breed in England, and most will continue on to Africa.
The mists will continue to grow.
A Walk with Wildlife 
Beautiful words and beautiful photos 🥰
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Thank you Sarah 🙂
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Fine photos, Adele. I can see how tales of spirits walking about derived from misty days. 🙂
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Thanks. I love the autumnal atmosphere 🙂
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I had to look up leucistic, but I learned something. Beautiful photos of the mist, and the birds.
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Leucism is most famous as the ‘white tiger’ colour. Occasionally occurs in foxes too, and a variety of other species. Not seen it in a wader before though.
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I wonder if that’s how the Kermode bear evolved too. Any idea?
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That got me checking. Kermode bears are cream due to polymorphism in the mc1r gene, apparently. According to a scientific paper I found, it’s the same gene that causes the pale colour in Labradors! And it’s also an advantage to the bears when hunting salmon in daylight; it spooks them less.
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Thanks for that, Adele.
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Thank you, Adele for this welcome path to the changing weather as we see different wildlife both coming and going.
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Thank you Ros. I’m hoping that it will be a good autumn with plenty of fungi and misty mornings, but after the ups and downs of the weather this year, who knows.
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A nature lover out-and-about in the early morning is always rewarded, as your beautiful images prove!
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Thank you, and yes indeed, the effort of getting up early is definitely worth it!
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The early girl catches the bird
Thanks for getting up before me
Sent from my iPhone
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Gorgeous photos and the video is so serene and beautiful. Thank you very much.
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Thank you Lynette 🙂
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These shore birds look like sandpipers but I might be wrong. I was never really familiar with shore birds, that’s why San got me an online workshop on shore birds for my birthday 😀
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Too many “shore birds” in just two sentences 😀 Forgive me I just came back from work…
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LOL!
I’m not an expert on waders / shore birds either, but fortunately my group included people who are, and these are ruff Calidris pugnax. Their distribution in Europe is mostly on the northern and western coasts, with some elsewhere too. Enjoy your workshop! Someone should set one of those up for British waders…
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Surfing WordPress, I found this post, and am glad I did. Beautiful photos and sharp observations.
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