Wolves Wild

Boletes are mushrooms which release their spores through pores on the underside of their caps, not gills. This species have a symbiotic relationship with birch trees, as on the lawn in front of these flats.

One of the cherry trees planted on the roadside of a quiet street, with its leaves changing colour for the autumn. The leaves were already bdeginning to fall when I took this picture. A couple of days later they had all gone.

Shaggy scalycaps, mushrooms with an appearance which fits the name. These were growing at the base of a roadside apple tree. One clump looked like they had emerged the that night; the neighbouring clump the previous night.

A cluster of sulfur tuft fungi on the stump of a tree: quite likely they had been responsible for the tree needing felling.

Sulfur tufts might be found any time until the end of the winter. They are one of the most cold-resistant of fungi, able to recover even after being frozen solid.

One of West Park’s collection of Japanese acers just beginning its autumn foliage colour change. The acers in the park (trees and bushes) seem to have been carefully chosen for contrasting leaf colours. This one is a lone tree near the edge of the lake.

Fungus growing in a front garden: it’s some kind of earthstar, but I’m not sure which species. It isn’t a collared earthstar, which is the type I normally come across.

West Park lake serves as a refuge for wildfowl which spend the warmer months dispersed elsewhere. The sizes of the goose and swan flocks increase, but most noticeable are the ducks. A handful of tufties usually hang around all year, but in winter the numbers increase perhaps tenfold. Shovellers are off in the spring, and turn up again come autumn.

When I took these shots in mid-October, the birds were just coming out of eclipse, having lost their breeding plumage but not yet completely achieved its winter replacement. Most noticeable in the males.

Amanitas are a group of gilled mushrooms which include the red capped fly agaric. Also in the group are some of the most deadly poisonous fungi (such as the appropriately named death cap) and others highly prized by gourmets.

These were too far away for a proper ID, but I think they were probably either the blusher or the panther, two species which are quite easy to confuse.

Dustbin day, with bins put out all all along the pavements. Overnight rain had left the bins wet, so one bin had attracted a tiny slug which was crawling slowly over its lid.

Mushrooms growing in the undergrowth below the hedge along a canal footpath. I couldn’t bend down for a closer look to try to get an ID.

Some of the berries still green and unripe, but most had already turned red. Bittersweet nightshade, though not as poisonous as some of its relatives, is still to be avoided. These twigs were escaping through the fence of a front garden, at a handy height for me to get close-ups on my mobile.

Two of the greylag geese from the West Park flock, watching me carefully. I wasn’t sure whether the attention was because they thought I was a potential source of food, or of danger.