wild OCTOBER

7 nature encounters for the month ahead

- WITH NATURALIST AND AUTHOR BEN HOARE

JAYS ARE SECRETIVE BIRDS, at least by crow standards. They have a knack of slipping away among trees unseen, or we might glimpse their bright white rumps as they vanish into the leaves, shrieking as they go. In October, this all changes, as the birds are emboldened by their search for fallen nuts, especially acorns. Each jay will hide thousands of acorns to eat over the coming winter – inadvertently helping to plant the forests of the future.

Here be dragons

SOME DRAGONFLIES WANDER A LONG way from the freshwater habitats where they first emerged, having undergone a dramatic metamorphosis from their ferociously predatory aquatic larval stage. Migrant hawkers, as their name suggests, are among these great travellers. In sunny weather you can often see them hunting flies and midges up and down hedgerows or the edges of wooded areas, sometimes in impressive swarms.