David

The horns, or possibly antennae, of this tiny insect are long in proportion to its body. It was wandering around on the leaves of the tangled vegetation by the banks of the Avon at Stratford.

A pair of red kites were circling, using a thermal to gain height over the Riverside Project reserve in Stratford. By the time I’d fumbled for my camera they were quite high, so all I got was of these two shots, which I think are of the same bird. Then they had flown out of sight.

Marmalade hover flies are really tiny. Here, two of them are busy feeding on the same dandelion flower.

Two banded demoiselles rest on river bank vegetation overhanging the Avon at Stratford. The (bright blue) males are often quite easy to spot, the (green) females less so.

Birds foot trefoil flowering in one of the open spaces in the Riverside Project nature reserve in Stratford. One of the wildflowers which had colonised the area without deliberate planting during the decades when it was left with only light management.

Some water mint has also managed to sneak in towards the end of this picture. It’s another wildflower which is capable of spreading unaided.

There’s one particular tree by the footpath through what is now the Riverside Project nature reserve in Stratford on Avon which has different bracket fungi growing on it every time we visit.

This time the brackets were tiny, but, as a bonus, there were two different species.

Those which did not have a crinkled rim were one of the mazegill species. This time, even the largest was no more than a half inch across. These will have been recent fruiting bodies, and may yet grow to be several inches wide, as could be found on this tree in earlier years.

This year’s second type had some individuals slightly larger than the mazegills. If they too are a recurrence of a species from earlier years, they are perhaps blushing brackets.

Damsons ripening slowly changing colour. These were on a tree growing, wild, by the river in Stratford on Avon.

A cinnabar moth caterpillar slowly making its way across a footpath. Presumably the grass (or the ragwort leaves) looked greener on the other side.

Growing at the edge of the footpath in the new Riverside Project nature reserve in Stratford on Avon, this bristly oxtongue is probably not one of the wildflowers which were deliberately introduced.

Teazles used to be very common in the scrubby areas by Anglers Walk. In one field, they were so common it looked like they had been planted as a crop, albeit one densely surrounded by nettles and more. During the flowering season they attracted lots of insects, especially bees.

That field is the one chosen as the site for the ponds and scrapes of the new nature reserve. Most of the teazles went in the process. But a few do stubbornly remain, and still attract bees to their flowers.