THE phrase "fresh," sums up so well the experience of exploring the countryside just following dawn on a clear and sunny autumn morning.

The chill in the air seems to bring your senses alive and puts a real spring in your step.

Despite the chill, it is hard to tell that it's not summer as the landscape is still mostly lush and green.

There are a few signs however that autumn is well and truly here. The rather poor show of mushrooms and toadstools last year has been more than compensated for this year, by the huge wealth of them that we are encountering this autumn.

A bright sunny autumn morning especially after a couple of wet days is great for fungi spotting. The low, yet fierce, sun penetrates into the wood and the tangle of undergrowth, highlighting many a mushroom you would otherwise have passed by.

A recent fungal foray on just such a morning revealed a few clumps of amethyst deceiver mushrooms tucked into various bramble patches, the sun catching their deep purple colouration making them as dazzling as any wild flower and as weird as any science fiction creature.

When I returned a little later that day to show a friend, the sun had risen higher and despite knowing where to look I could not find them.

Out of the sun, their amethyst colour seems to fade and they blend surprisingly well into background of a bramble thicket.

The fungi are not the only colour in the landscape though. Gazing up at the tree canopy reveals that the first signs of autumn colour change are beginning to creep into them, as they begin to withdraw the valuable green chlorophyll from their leaves back into their trunks so they can afford to lose their leaves for the winter.

The fruit trees seem to be the most advanced at this, so in areas like Burlish Top, which are rich in fruit trees things are already looking quite autumnal in places.

There are even a few red patches beginning to appear in the otherwise green canopy of the other trees.

At first I thought that it was a more dramatic leaf colour change than usual, but at closer inspection I could see that it was a profusion of berries that have appeared on the hawthorn trees.

Personally, I can't remember ever having seen such a heavy crop.

It is certainly going to provide a bounty for our over-wintering wildlife that will be plumping themselves up on this in readiness for the winter.