Landcastles

 Have I mentioned before how much I love Autumn? Mother Nature's teasing me with little bits of 'autumn-ness' every where as we sit on the cusp of my favorite season. I took my camera and 2 of my kids for a walk the other day, back to Yatton Park to build sandcastles  landcastles and to see what became of the one I built 3 months ago. To my surprise there was still a little bit of it standing!

The remains of my first landcastle at Yatton Park. You can see the fallen sticks at the base and I'm guessing it was nature that took this down, not people. I'm surprised to see any of the sticks still standing! Just like last time I found mushrooms nearby too..

I spotted this too...a seed pod of some sort. I only found the one seed and I couldn't determine which tree it came from so I've got no idea what plant it is. I left it where I found it.

My children also left a little 'something' behind...

In the place of my old one, they made this!

The pine cone actually fell from the tree and landed where they were building.

It was so cool listening to them talking to each other. "What sort of structure you going for mate?"

"Ahh, just something.. you know. See what I can find." "Mum...I bags the stick!" "Hey mate...I think Mum just beat you too it!"

This is what I left behind, landcastle II.

Anyone who knows me will know how ecstatically happy I was to find a nest! And not just any nest, but a flat one that was otherwise intact. It even had a hole in it right through the middle, just big enough for the stick!

Nest love!

For scale I took a photo to show how it looks as you walk past...it stands about 1 metre high yet it's totally dwarfed by the huge hundred year old tree.

Life is good!