Country diary: Sometimes only the most rotten fruit will do | Mark Cocker

Buxton, Derbyshire: Our discovery apples have mainly gone to the jackdaws and crows. But here come a dozen red admirals, and they know what they likeThe floss from willowherb seed flared as it passed through strips of sunlight between our fruit trees. But a secondary, far stranger source of glitter came from below. Every few minutes, among the intervening grasses, newly hatched craneflies bulbed out the earth, their unfurled wings sparkling as they dried and waited to launch. Above were the sounds of ravens on display, the birds barrelling down and then flipping on to their backs as they flew momentarily upside down.All these heterogenous details converged in a single announcement. It's autumn! Yet it was our discovery apples that best summarised the season. This year's crop is a rich rose colour and has been beckoning to the local birds for weeks. While we've harvested a third, most has gone to jackdaws and crows, along with the blackbirds and tits. I've seen the corvids flying off with whole hunks of flesh, but the small birds quarry out pits in the skins of the hanging fruit. Continue reading...