Country diary: Autumn is a time to rake in the wildlife | Phil Gates

Crook, County Durham: There's a contemplative pleasure to gathering up the leaves this time of year, and it's a benefit to legions of invertebrates and toadstools tooI can hear the distant, angry growl of a leaf blower, carried on the wind, nature's leaf blower. Otherwise, it's quiet here in the garden, sheltered by a high hedge, raking fallen leaves, one of autumn's contemplative tasks, reviving memories of watching for first signs of their unfurling in spring, and sitting in their shade during summer's heatwaves.An ever-changing palette of colours settles on the path: today, burnt orange and cinnamon shades of Amelanchier, crimson spindle, yellow hawthorn, scarlet cherry foliage. What to do with them? There are too many to consign to the compost heaps. Send them away in the garden waste wheelie bin? Corral them in a chicken wire cage until they eventually become crumbly leaf mould? There's another option: raking them back under the trees and hedge, into the flowerbeds, closing a loop in the cycle of life. Six years of doing just that has produced some wonderful displays of woodland toadstools. First to show this year were clusters of lilac-tinted wood blewits (Lepista nuda), followed by sepia boletes (Xerocomellus porosporus) with domed caps cracked like crazy paving. Pallid, warty puffballs are shouldering aside layers of decay, ready to shed their spores. Continue reading...