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David

from little acorns

from little acorns

Acorns just starting to develop on an oak tree, still green and probably less than half the size they will reach before they ripen.

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David

Greenbottle on a leaf

Greenbottle on a leaf

Greenbottle blowfly resting on a leaf taking the sun, the light showing up the bright metallic greens and yellows of its body.

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David

Upper Furnace Pool, Coalbrookdale

Upper Furnace Pool, Coalbrookdale

Upper Furnace Pool, the highest of a series of pools created by dams on the brook flowing down the valley at Coalbrookdale. Built to provide a reliable source of water for the historic Abraham Darby ironworks, now a haven for wildlife.

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David

Sticky stickweed fruit

Sticky stickweed fruit

Just about every above-ground part of the stickweed clings, earning it, among its more polite names, the epithet of velcro plant. At this time of year the small fruit stick to any clothing brought too close to the plant, and presumably also to the fur of any mammal passing through a patch.

Sticky stickweed fruit

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David

Thistle flower attracting insects

Thistle flower attracting insects

Soldier beetles and other small green insects feeding on the same thistle flowers – attractive to many different species.

Thistle flower attracting insects

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David

Destroying angels growing on wood mulch

rose-gilled grisette growing in wood bark mulch

Destroying angel mushrooms – as nasty as the name implies. A fungus which had a central role in a 2001 episode of Midsomer Murders, which included a reasonably accurately portrayal of the symptoms of destroying angel poisoning.

Not a fungus I have often seen around the west midlands, it may have been brought in with the wood mulch.

CORRECTION: identified by Lukas Large as rose-gilled grisettes