Hawthorn hedges are peppered with bright red as their berries turn fully ripe. It looks as if there will be an excellent crop this year, with the branches on some bushes bending under the weight of the berries. Blackbirds and song thrushes, and later on the winter thrushes — redwings and fieldfares — will benefit from this abundance of food. Blackbirds are already quarrelling over the ripe red fruit dangling on the wild cherry trees. On lime trees, the seeds are plumping out and look like tiny drumsticks. They are attached to a wing like a small dry leaf that will take them spinning down to the ground next month. On oaks, the green acorns have risen above the little pipe-bowls that they grow in.

Meanwhile, on some trees new leaves are still appearing. On many young sycamores and maples in the hedges, there are fresh pink or reddish leaves at the tip of the twigs, while little red leaves can be found sprouting out of the trunks of old oaks.