It doesn’t get very cold in this part of Suffolk in Autumn, so the leaves tend to get blown away before they have a chance to develop much colour. (Yet a few miles away, where it gets chillier, there have been great clouds of yellow leaves.)
However, in the last couple of weeks, the night-time temperature has got cold enough to encourage a bit of colour here and there. You have to look quite hard for it, but it can be found.
Our recent frost helped to make the last of the leaves more interesting to photograph, providing a crisp, icy contrast to the warm tones of the leaves. It was a good time to be out early to take some pictures.
While I was wandering around with my camera, I noticed soft noises that at first sounded as if there were birds hopping around nearby.
But when I looked up, I realised that I was hearing the leaves falling in the neighbours’ garden. It gets the sun before ours does, and as the frost melted, the leaf-stalks were losing their last grip on the trees and shrubs and dropping softly to the ground. Somehow, the tiny sounds made the morning feel even more hushed and peaceful.
The leaves will soon be gone and everything will seem bare and wintry. But, just for this last little while, these few are rich and glowing with beautiful warm tones – a sight to seek out and enjoy.
By the time you read this, we will have had another frosty morning here. More of the leaves will have fallen and I will have been out taking more photographs.
Ann Mackay: Inspired by Nature 