Discover a season of mists and mellow fruitfulness

Autumn is a magical season and the perfect time to explore your nearest wood: trees are colourful and berries bountiful.  While on your woodland expedition, the Trust is asking you to keep an eye open for, and subsequently record, natural seasonal signs.   

This is very much berry season.  Look out for the ripening reds of haws, rose-hips and rowanberries, and don’t forget the deep blacks of sloes, elderberries and blackberries. 

Ash and beech leaves are beginning to yellow.  Hazelnuts are ripening, acorns start falling to the ground and non-native horse chestnuts – much to the delight of children – will be dropping their bounty of conkers.  Ivy will be thinking of flowering, and swallows and swifts thinking of departing. 

Patrick Cregg, director of the Woodland Trust in Northern Ireland, says: “Your records – whether of first leaf tint or ripening berries – will help us learn when and where autumn is arriving.  We have thousands of recorders throughout the UK; but unfortunately records remain particularly scarce in Northern Ireland and we’re appealing to local people to take part.  Your observations, no matter how few, will help build a clearer picture of how our plants and animals are responding to a changing climate.”

Mr Cregg continues: “And with its vibrant displays of reds, golds and browns, autumn really is the most beautiful time of the year for you, and your children, to wrap up warm and get out and about.”

The charity’s VisitWoods website contains details of over 11,000 woods throughout the UK.  To find your nearest wood, go to www.VisitWoods.org.uk/autumn and follow the link to add your sightings.

The VisitWoods project is a partnership led by the Woodland Trust in collaboration with the National Trust, RSPB, the Wildlife Trusts and the Forestry Commission.