Grey spotted amanitas appear at any time from August to November on a front lawn I pass often. Usually several appear together, but this autumn there was just this one mushroom. Almost always, they have been well nibbled before I spot them.
First frost of autumn: nettles
Frost crystals on the leaves of nettles, lit by early morning sunshine before it got warm enough to melt the ice.
First frost of autumn: canal at Compton
View across the canal by Compton on the first heavily frosted morning of the winter.
Autumn funghi: patches on a fallen trunk
Patches of colour on fallen or felled tree trunks are often the fruiting bodies of whichever fungus rotted and weakened the tree.
Autumn funghi: yellow cracked bolete
Yellow cracked bolete (also called suede bolete) growing under broadleaf trees. Compare the colour visible in the gaps in the crazy paving of the cap to that of the red cracking bolete.
First frost of autumn: nasturtium leaves
First frost of autumn, and the ice crystals formed preferentially along the veins of these nasturtium leaves.
Carrion crow, five buzzards
Five buzzards rising on a late-morning thermal over Paget Road. Carrion crow, perhaps half the size of one of the buzzards, was persistently worrying the hindmost.
First frost of autumn: Barley Field
Last Week of October, and the first frost of autumn. This was the Barley Field before the bright sun burned off the frost.
Autumn fungi: magpie inkcaps again
Another revisit to Bridgnorth’s Castle Grounds after yet another week, heading straight for the wood mulch with magpie inkcaps growing. Once again there has been someone kicking over the mushrooms which were there the previous time. Once again a fresh set of these distinctive fungi have emerged to shed their spores.
Himley Plantation, mid-October
Peaceful scene somewhere in the middle of Himley Plantation. Although it was mid-October, the leaves still on the trees still looked green.
Coral spot fungus: red
Coral spot fungus, which infects deciduous trees. The fruiting bodies may be spotted at any time of year, but peak in the summer and autumn, sometimes on the dying branches of living plants; sometimes, as here, on a felled trunk. The colour changes with age. These, on a tree in Himley Plantation, were mainly a deep red.
Colours of autumn: fallen sycamore leaf
Fallen leaf from a sycamore tree. It had come off just as the colours were beginning to change for the autumn.