Growing at the base of a tree on the riverbank at Stratford on Avon, two different species of inkcap mushrooms in adjacent masses. The paler ones are common inkcaps, the yellower ones, glistening inkcaps (which in my experience are a lot more common, at least in the west midlands).
Planted for their autumn colour, these liquidambar trees make a striking effect in the days just before their leaves come down. They are in a line along the road by the main entrance to the RSC theatre in Stratford.
Still standing where we’d spotted the egret, the deer and the kingfisher, we looked down to the ground. There we saw some earthstars, which we think may be crowned earthstars (Geastrum coronatum), a fungal rarity.
Vervain, flowering in early November. One of the plants in the Bancroft Gardens by the Stratford on Avon Canal Basin where the canal meets the Avon in the centre of Stratford.
As the deer were re-grouping after clambering out of the river at Charlecote Park, a kingfisher landed on the riverbank, looking at the same short stretch of water the egrat had been watching. It stayed there watching for a short time as the deer moved off, then something disturbed it. It flew off a short distance upstream before landing in a tree, out of sight from our position.
The main gathering of the fallow deer herd at Charlecote Park, seen from the road outside the park earlier this month. The adult stags had their full antlers as the rutting season was drawing to its close. We were to far away to be sure whether the herd were so closely grouped together because they were standing under trees to shelter from the intermittent rain that day.