Wolves Wild

Honey fungus fruiting bodies usually grow in dense clumps at the base of the trees they are parasiting. This is a rare exception.

Fallen autumn leaves from an exotic oak in Bantock Park, larger and more jagged in outline than the native species. Such a pleasing arrangement for the outcome of the random process of leaf fall.

This picture was taken just a few minutes after the frosted leaf in the previous post. A bend in the canal between Compton and Wightwick which often has a layer of mist even when it is clear everywhere else.

The first frost since the spring, the night the clocks went back. So it wasn’t too hard getting out nice and early, and finding this frosted buttercup leaf brightly lit by a sun which was still too low in the sky to melt the ice completely.

Two Gloucester Old Spot pigs, presumably a boar and a sow, snoozing side by side in their shelter on a sunny autumn morning at Northycote Farm.

Monkey puzzle (auracaria) with flowers beginning to open. The tree was growing at the roadside, right next to Codsall railway station.

Young (first winter) little grebe fishing in the canal at Compton. It seemed to be managing to catch a small fish in virtally all of its frequent dives.

Closer views of some of the leaves from the two Japanese acers in the previous post. A gentle breeze and a slow exposure gave the main picture an abstract quality.

Two of the Japanese acer trees scattered around West Park as they turn to their vivid autumn colours.

These pictures were all taken within a couple of minutes.

A cygnet contorting its neck to rub its head against its back (the preen gland?) as it swam near the Bylet in the River Severn.

Tree by the footpath along the Severn at Bridgnorth, turning into autumn colours a little ahead of the rest.

The day after Halloween, and a thick mist early in the morning.

A heron on the rail around boating lake island was just about visible, and seemed totally unfazed once it had noticed me watching it.