David

The wings of these maple seeds beginning to brown as the seeds at their base are ripening. The tree was growing close to Lucy’s Mill footbridge over the Avon at Stratford. So I could stand on the steps to get this close-up with the subject at eye level.

A heron at the foot of one of the weirs on the Avon at Stratford, looking out for fish being swept down by the water. It constantly seemed on the verge of swooping, but never actually did so while we were watching.

I’m not sure what happened to these cardoons, or rather to the remains of cardoons, to give them such a bleached-out appearance. They were among the plants growing wild on the site of a former helipad in Stratford on Avon.

Along with the several damselflies by the river at Stratford, there were two dragonflies, of different species. One was large, brown, and constantly on the move. It stayed too far out over the water to get a clear view, or any sort of picture. The other was more cooperative, spending time resting on a leaf. It was a broad bodied chaser, which is indeed one of the commoner dragonflies.

It was a mature male. Immature males and all females are yellow-brown.

Ripe plums fallen from a tree, their skins in various stages of decoration from the fungi which are rotting them.

Where vegetation grows wild on the banks of the Avon it’s normally good for lots of different insect types in summer, including butterflies. On one occasion, we even saw an exotic tropical butterfly there. Sadly, that will have been an escapee from the nearby butterfly farm. This year, in the summer without butterflies, all we could spot was this single comma, feeding on the waterside meadowsweet flowers.