October is a month of great activity in the British natural world. It's the prime month for rutting deer, so red and fallow deer are conspicuous in parks, woodland and moors. Smaller mammals such as mice and squirrels are busy storing fat reserves and food for the winter. Wildfowl and waders arrive in numbers from their northern breeding grounds, and rarer migrant birds may be seen, especially in hotspots such as Scilly and Norfolk. Beech and oakwoods are at the magnificent best and the first frosts dust the autumn foliage with silver. Sloes adorn the hedgerows and fungi proliferate, especially in a damp year.

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