Fingers Crossed

I had a lovely stroll up to my patch this afternoon, after catching up with a couple of online events I'd missed while we were away. It was very dull, but visibility was good and it stayed dry. I did a tour of inspection around the small area of woodland - still not a lot of fungi, although there was one small area bristling with Fly Agaric and weirdly a solitary Wood Blewitt - which I don't really expect to see until late November at the earliest. I enjoyed watching the usual Kestrels hunting over the fields on my way out, and on my return, one of them was posing on one of the wires.
The highlight, however, was seeing my first Winter visitor - a lovely Brambling - feeding with a small group of Goldfinches and a Bullfinch on the plentiful Rowan berries. I didn't see a single one last year, so I'm hoping this sighting presages a good year for them.