David

Fly agaric mushrooms, which usually appear later in the autumn. These were in Hawthorn Wood.

Although they were right in the middle of the wood, someone had got to them before me and had kicked them over.

Young (and reckless) blackbird with speckled feathers, searching for food right by a busy footpath.

Marsh woundwort flowering, growing by a footpath along the Avon at Stratford.

Two herons on the island at West Park. One young, stretching tall, looking skinny. The other mature, hunched.

Usually, herons in near proximity stand so they are looking, as far as possible, to look away from each other. These, contrariwise, were facing each other directly, staring directly all the time I was there.

Female garden spider (sometimes called cross spiders) on her web. Autumn is the time these spiders become more obvious, the females becoming ever larger until they lay their eggs.

Common darter dragonflies busy flying yesterday at one or other of the two ponds in the Smestow Valley Nature Reserve or on the canal at Compton.

These are males. Except when they managed to attract a female (see previous post below) they were having to spend most of their time flying up and down their patch of water, on patrol, ready to fend off another, intruding male.