West Park squirrel hanging on to the trunk of a tree, watchful in case I have intentions of grabbing the food from its mouth.
I wasn’t close enough to see what the food was: perhaps bread left by the lake as an offering for the ducks.
Hereford calf which was keeping a watchful eye on me as I passed its enclosure on my last visit to Northycote Farm.
The leaves of this Japanese acer are always red, but in autumn they change to a colour so vivid it almost seems to glow.
These pictures were taken on a cloudy day – lighting conditions which mute the colours somewhat.
Two busy roads are within earshot, but as far as the eye can see this view could be right in the countryside.
It’s actually about a minute’s walk from Compton Lock.
Collared earthstars are the least rare species of this unusual-looking type of fungus.
They are often hard to spot because, like these, they are half-hidden in undergrowth.
These were growing under the hedge by the towpath at Castlecroft, a couple of miles from Compton where another set of this fungus had been not long before.
Black-headed gull on a post in the river Avon at Stratford, carefully keeping an eye out for trouble.
Green shield bug, sitting on an ivy leaf in a mixed ivy/hawthorn hedge. It is beginning to turn into its winter colour, brown.
A post from 2010 shows another, browner, bug resting on berries.
When this one saw me looking at it, it moved to a less exposed position.
Thanks to rockwolf for correcting my mistaken identification of the species.
Comma butterfly resting on an ivy leaf, discreetly warming in the autumn sun.
I douldn’t decide between the picture with the closer view, or the one with more of the insect’s surroundings.
Two of the fast-growing Gloucester Old Spot piglets at Northycote Farm snuffling through squelchy mud in search of bits of their feed which had got buried.
Some of the piglets had been doing exactly the same on my previous visit to the farm.
Canada goose stretching as it bathes in the drinking trough of the duck pen at Northycote Farm.
Moments earlier, one of the ducks had been bathing alongside it, only to get out of the water as I reached for my camera.
The contorted position of the goose only lasted for a few seconds.
Verdigris mushrooms get their name from their green colour, which looks more like the patina formed on copper than the shade of any other living thing.
The colour is strongest on young fungi. Then it fades, or washes away in rain.
They have been one of the species which has been more common than usual this autumn. Today’s pictures feature some of the verdigris mushrooms from a group growing a few yards from Compton Lock, and a single individual which was by one of the hedgerows on Northycote Farm.
Ash keys in profusion hanging down from twigs on a tree by the canal at Catlecroft.
Apparently some people mistake this perfectly healthy stage which happens every autumn for the shrivelled and darkened leaves which are a symptom of the attack of the fungus which causes ash dieback.