David

Right by canal lock lower gates often seems to be a good spot for plants to take root. Here, the bottom gate of the Stratford Canal leads from the canal basin to the Avon, with Mexican fleabane spreading down the wall nearby

Thirty or so adult swans crowd together on the Avon at Stratford, being fed by children above. On the edge of the crowd or nearby are a few Canada geese and mallards, and the group of cygnets in the previous post.

Pretty much all day, every day in Stratford on Avon, there’s a mob of birds on the river directly below Bancroft Gardens, fighting to get the bread or more healthy food thrown by visitors.

Most of the mob are adult swans, though a few of the geese and the mallards manage to squeeze into gaps.

Here, a group of juvenile swans were on the edge of the crowd. Their feathers show them as this year’s hatchlings, but now grown to more or less full size. They kept together, so are likely siblings.

Swan parents usually keep a close eye on their offspring until they are themselves grown up and ready to be shooed off to make a life of their own. Perhaps the adults were somewhere in the main crowd.

Mulberries ripening on a mature tree in the front yard of the Dirty Duck / Black Swan inn by the river in Stratford on Avon.

Anyone who fancies a drink while gazing at the river and the passing tourists needs to take care. The tree’s contorted trunk makes a low arch over the way to some of the tables.

Even more hazardous: the fruit ripening season is a long one, all through the warmer summer months. Once ripe, the squishy fruit drop without warning, leaving deep, dark stains which might just be removable if they are treated at once.

Bancroft Gardens in Stratford on Avon lies between the canal basin, the river and the RSC theatre. Along the roadside edge of the open space, there’s a row of American sweetgum trees, a species of liquidambar. They make their most striking effect in the autumn, when the leaves change to a range of vivid colours. Most striking recently was these spiky balls. Are they fruit or nuts?

More summer mushrooms on a front lawn. This time, they were boletes, but too far away to narrow it down to a precise species.

The current little flush of summer mushrooms continues, with lurid boletes proving to be one of the most frequent. This one was some distance away, on a front lawn conveniently at waist level. So the picture shows the underside of the cap, where the spores come out of pores rather than gills.

The lime trees seem to have had an even longer than usual flowering season than usual this year. But it’s now over, and the seeds are finally beginning to ripen.

The garden in front of a block of flats. The raised lawn which regularly throws up several species of mushroom each year in their due seasons. There’s already been one set of blushers, much smaller than the usual size. They’ve now gone, to be replaced further along the lawn by others, size back to normal.

Poppies seen on a short walk in Wolverhampton city centre (between the city bus station and the Great Western pub as it happens).

The poppies were all growing wild. There’s at least two different species represented even in this small sample. One kind had flowers on stalks only a few inches tall, with different shaped leaves to the taller ones.