Wolves Wild

A pair of sweet chestnuts – the edible kind – ripening on one of the trees in the garden at Wightwick Manor.

Red admirals were one of two species which were attracted to the last few buddleia flowers in the garden at Wightwick Manor. There were three around, but this was the ony one cooperative enough for me to get pictures of it.

Heritage open days in September give a chance to see National Trust properties without the usual entrance charges. The garden at Wightwick Manor is usually (given good weather) beginning to turn attractively autumnal, as the leaves on this tree reflected in the still water of one of the ponds.

Wood chip mulch often brings fungal spores along for the ride, and then forms a source of food for the spores to grow. This burgeoning growth is of wrinkled fieldcaps.

It doesn’t look possible that they can move along making so little impression on the water: the power of surface tension. Water boatmen on the pond at Wightwick Manor.

The delicate pink spreading across the cap of a rosy bonnet mushroom. From the fungi-rich woodland at Himley Plantation.

The Rollright Stones are a group of standing stones in the Cotswolds. There’s a stone circle, a group of somewhat taller stones which are the remains of a prehistoric tomb, and, taller still, a single standing stone.

The complex is a few miles from Chipping Norton, a little way from the smaller village of Rollright. The tall standing stone – the King Stone – is separated from the others by a minor road, which is also the county boundary. So it’s in Warwickshire, the rest in Oxfordshire.

These pictures are all of the stones in the circle, as they were in late summer a few years ago.

Common darter are one of the easier dragonfly species to photograph. They often stand at rest in sunny patches, and can be less wary than other types. But the females tend to show themselves more rarely than the males, and more prone to flying off when someone gets close.

So I was surprised several years ago around this season when a female common darter landed just inches from where I was crossing the bridge over the Railway Walk at Castlecroft, and even more surprised when I was able to get off several close-up pictures without any signs she was disturbed. These are pictures I never posted at the time.

Deceivers, small and quite common mushrooms. They’re very variable in form, and especially in colour, so quite easy to mis-identify. This sample shows some of that range of colour.

A robin which landed almost by my feet and immediately began to busily peck at the ground for insects. As well as being hungry, it was perhaps a young bird which had not yet learned the importance of caution.