David

Autumn, so it’s garden spider season again. Sometimes called cross spiders, they and their orb webs are around at all times of year, but most visible now, as egg-laying time approaches.

Hoary plantain, still flowering in September, growing in meadowland on Wellcombe Hills, Stratford on Avon.

An oak tree on the edge of the Old Nursery woodland. The undersides of the leaves covered in hundreds of silk button galls. A wasp, or more likely several wasps, had been very busy.

Another selection of mushrooms growing in the Wellcombe Hills nature reserve (see yesterday’s post). These were in a grassy area a little below the high point with its obelisk.

A group of parasol mushrooms, possibly the largest mushroom in this country, were growing along the hillside. Some looked like they had only come up the previous night, while others had caps fully spread.

A short distance further along were a smaller group of white dapperlings.

Comma butterfly gorging on ripe damsons which have fallen from the tree.

Wellcombe Hills, a local nature reserve just a short walk from Stratford on Avon town centre. We took shelter in a small stand of mixed trees when there was a brief shower. This selection of different mushroom species were in the grass under the trees – most of them species I’d never seen before.