Wolves Wild

Two neighbouring thistle plats, at the end of last November. One still had plenty of flowers still open, the other looked like it was already throwing out the new leaves for a new year.

Anglers Walk is a footpath along the Avon heading upstream from Clopton Bridge at Stratford on Avon. It’s much less well known than the paths heading downstream. Until recently, most of the path has just had an earth surface, muddy after rain. The river is one one side, but the other side was rather overgrown with scrubby vegetation.

It’s much quieter than the route downstream – pretty much limited to fishermen and locals walking their dogs or jogging. But work has now begun to upgrade the site, with the aim that it should become a local nature reserve. Paths have been surfaced throughout, some newly established. A large area which had previously been dominated by teazles and reeds has now been cleared, with a couple of ponds or scrapes excavated to form the centre for a reed bed. Work has also been done on the woodland.

These two species of bracket fungi were on the same tree, which formed part of the hedge separating the path from the wooded area.

Higher on the trunk there were several fruiting bodies from a blushing bracket, with its distinctive reddish colour. Somewhat lower were fruiting bodies of a mazegill, with an underside having spore-releasing tubes which have the supposed resemblance to a maze.

Hydrangea shrub in a local front garden, flowering when the first heavy frost of the winter hit. All the foliage was covered in crystals.

Yellow / orange crab apples in late autumn on a tree in a front garden. Were they chosen as a colour match for the Wolves shirts, perhaps?

As part of their conservation work on tropical butterflies, the Stratford on Avon Butterfly Farm have a breeding programme. One room showcases this work, and has a few of the caterpillars on their food plants.

The pair of what look like they might be pupae (aka cocoons) were on the underside of one of the leaves of a banana plant in the big hothouse room.

As promised, this is the final set of butterfly pictures from the Stratford on Avon Butterfly Farm..

All pictures were taken with the phone on a mobile. On previous visits, I used a standalone camera. That gave images of higher quality, and an ability to zoom in on tiny subjects several feet away. But it did also mean I had to wait for the best part of a half hour while the camera acclimatized to the heat and humidity of the hothouse on a cold winter day so that it was no longer misted up. No such problems with a moby, for me at least.