The mosaic of autumn...

What a sudden change in the weather! From the deep warmth of summer to the chill and frosts of autumn in the space of a day; it is quite a shock to the system, but I don't complain. Every season that comes around, I think is my favourite, and this is no exception.

I don't know why it is, but with all the poems there are about autumn - some extolling it, others lamenting - I have never read one that talks about its sounds. Changing leaf colours, yes; frosts and early evenings, yes; mists and "mellow fruitfulness", yes - but nothing about the great murders of crows that are now gathering, crarking away to each other as they swoop through the sky. (Isn't 'murder' a great collective noun?) No mention either of the thin but delightful music of the robins, singing to reclaim their territory in the wet early mornings, while a low pink sun rises behind them over the fields.
Funnily enough, the seagulls aren't making much noise at the moment, but their numbers have swelled considerably since the ploughing began again. As the tractors snort and grumble their way across the fields, turning over great clods of dark brown chocolatey earth, they gather in a great cloud, rising and falling, and rising again, following in the tractors wake.

Autumn is such a bits-and-pieces, patchwork of a season: part summer, part winter, it combines the mournful lament of late summer, with the expectation and anticipation of early spring. It think this quote from Stanley Horowitz describes it very well: "Winter is an etching, spring a watercolour, summer an oil painting and autumn a mosaic of them all."