Wolves Wild

It seems to have been a good summer for silver y moths. This one was sheltering in a spot behind old webs, showing the pale mark on its wing which gives it its name.

Shaggy parasols are one of the larger British fungi. These are fairly freshly-emerged before their caps spread to take on the parasol shape.

In this one the outer layer hasn’t even started to divide to give the shaggy appearance.

They come up around this time of year, often repeating in the same area.

These were in West Park. Pictures from nearby in previous years are here, here and here.

Sunlight catching a spider’s web covered in water after rain. Miniature rainbows in the drops looked like hundreds of tiny jewels.

Ripening seeds on a plantain stalk. The surface of the canal near Swindon, out of focus, provides a near-uniform background.

Views of a single solitary wood mushroom.

Growing in the garden of Wightwick Manor – right at the far edge of the wood.

Group of clustered toughshanks growing on the floor of the woodland at Wightwick Manor earlier this month.

Gatekeeper butterfly with ragged wings resting on flattened grass in Barley Field at the end of last month.

One of the flowers on a himalayan balsam, with the seeds developing from previous flowers in the background.

Grey spotted amanitas in Sutton Park a month ago.

The mushrooms seemed to be growing everywhere there was short grass in wooded areas.

Liquid ambers are trees originating in the Americas, imported as ornamentals. This one is in the garden of Wightwick Manor.

It was beginning to turn into autumnal colours when the Manor was opened to free entry on the Heritage Open Day earlier this month.

Bullrush flower on the edge of Wetland Lake. Flower on the same plant a couple of weeks earlier pictured here.

Fly agaric just beginning to push above the ground; same place as those featured in the previous post.

I went for a second look early on the morning after the other pictures were taken.

The full-grown mushrooms which had been growing in the soil by the flower bed had been kicked over. It can’t have helped that their bright colours make them hard to miss.

The two which were growing half-hidden by the vegetation did not appear to have been disturbed, and this one was now more visible and more photogenic.

UPDATE: Friday 27th September, lunchtime. I’ve just been across the park again, and the flower bed has been emptied and dug over in readiness for its next contents. The fly agarics, which were hiding under the leaves of the old flowers, are gone too.

I’m not surprised that whoever did it, in a workforce decimated by council cuts, didn’t notice the fungi, and I’m hopeful that the underground structures remain to produce fresh fruiting bodies in the future.

UPDATE 2: Saturday 5th October. Another visit to the park, and a new fly agaric has indeed come up in that flower bed. Also a fresh patch of fly agarics nearby. Will post pictures of these once they have been developed.