...And Then There Were Five

The cygnets are back by the bridge, and starting to show specks of white in their brown plumage - but there are only five of them now.
It was warm and sunny yesterday, and I saw more butterflies than I'd seen all summer, Red Admirals and Tortoiseshells mostly. There were clouds of little flies over the fields above the bridge, too. I thought that this would be good fuel for the swallows as they started their journey back to Africa - until I realised that, despite the warm sun, we are in the middle of October, and the swallows are long gone. And I didn't notice them go this year.
Meanwhile, the potato trailers are about finished, but more agricultural machinery has been trundling through town with the remains of the hop harvest dusted over them.