It's a Classic Autumn

Mid April. There's butter yellow in the gold ash and tulip trees, orange and rust red in the pin oaks, dogwoods and snowball viburnums, crimson in the claret ash and the whole range through to purple coming into the liquid ambers. Stunning viewing as I walked this morning, intoxicated by the crisp early morning air. I sucked the air deep into my lungs. It reminded me of the Southern Comfort over ice I drank late last night, which Lib bought me for my birthday.
Last year we missed autumn altogether. The weather went from hot as hadies through March to freezing cold in April in the blink of an eye. My friend Nigel went back to England as his father died. He left 40C weather here at the beginning of March to be greeted by freezing conditions in England, where he watched the Commonwealth Games in Melbourne, in the March heatwave, on TV. He couldn't wait to get home but came back into our cold snap which lasted for 5 months. The conditions this time are perfect for the autumn show; dry, warm days, cool nights, after a hot summer with some good rain.
The birds are fattening up on holly and cotoneaster berries, Himalayan strawberries, apples, figs, persimmons in a gourmet garden banquet before the harsh winter. The bees have shrunk down their brood nests and are packing honey in tight around the brood despite the warm 25C days, and nectar still coming in. I worked through them on Saturday, taking the third box off each and even knocking two down to singles, they'd reduced so much. They know what's coming, and are getting ready to rest after a long season gathering a record (in my experience) crop of honey. There are still drones in the hives but these I'm sure will be expelled with the next front of cold weather. I united the two hives at Sunset together to make one super strong colony, and left a box of thin unsealed honey on top for them to ripen. I'll unite two hives here at home next weekend, and maybe even turn 4 into 2. The less hives I have in spring the less trouble I should have with swarming is how I see it. Who knows what spring will hold?
So I had a busy weekend. Another 125kg of honey. I'll do a post shortly to summarize the bee season, just for the record, and to print a copy to send to my old boss, senior apiary inspector Laurie Braybrook, who's now in his eighties and a long time retired, but who has remained in touch despite it more than 26 years since I left the Department of Agriculture.

To my great joy, my son Robbie had the bird book out last week. He reckons he saw a female satin bower bird in the fig tree. I don't doubt it. A while ago I saw a greeny coloured bird, quite large, in the same tree, but couldn't get a good look at it. I hope to get another sighting.