Wolves Wild

Sadly deceased, the body of a tawny owl lay by the Smestow Valley LNR Railway Walk, yesterday afternoon. I couldn’t see any obvious cause of death.

A candy-striped spider (Complex Enoplognatha ovata) guarding the web holding her eggs. On the underside of two hazel leaves, which were held together by the web.

Pavement mushroom (Agaricus bitorquis), so-called because they sometimes go through the tarmac of pavements Here growing in the earth around one of the trees lining a pavement.

Fruits on a spindle tree, still very unripe, still green like the background vegetation.

Puffball fungi growing right by a tree stump in Compton Park, half-hidden by the grass they were growing through.

Insects and other arthropods go through a series of stages or instars as they develop towards the adult form. As they grow, their exoskeletons must be shed before they can grow a new and larger one. Sometimes there are variations is the precise shape or colour patterns of each successive instar.

Such is the case for shield bugs, including the most common around here, the common green shield bug. Seen here, the fourth and fifth instars of a green shield bug. Pictures taken a week apart, possibly of the same individual – resting, at any rate, on the same leaf of a hazel bush.