Wolves Wild

A large oak by the river in the Bancroft Gardens, Stratford on Avon. A few people can be seen behind it, watching the swans swim up and down the water.

This autumn, some of the local acers seem to have outdone themselves in the brightness of the reds of their leaves. This one was in a front garden.

Clustered domecaps, a fairly common mushroom which – surprise – tends to grow in clusters. They often grow close to paths, as these were doing in a woody area in West Park.

A big pile of fungi photos: there have been so many this autumn that I haven’t kept up with posting them, or even trying to work out which species they are.

Trees beside the perimeter path in West Park, changing colour before the autumn leaf fall.

Suede boletes. From a distance, the tops of the caps do actually look rather like they’re suede, especially when the mushrooms are recent. The underside of the caps don’t have gills: boletes release their spores through pores.

These were growing under beech trees at the side of Richmond Road.

Autumn changes in an acer on a quiet residential street. In mid-October (first picture) most of the leaves had already turned bright red. Ten days later the colours had perhaps got a little deeper, with leaf fall accelerating. Another fortnight left the tree almost bare. The pictures are close-ups of some of those leaves still clinging on.

Went back ten days later to the site of the cup shaped orange fungi. In the mean time they had begun to develop showing that they were just the well-known orange peel fungus.

Fungi growing in short grass under a beech by Richmond Road. From their shape and size, they looked like cup fungi. But the colour was unexpected. Many cup fungi are an inconspicuous fawn. One species is bright red: scarlet elf cups. Could these be something rarer?

There’s not many plants flowering in November, even in gardens set out to have interest throughout the year. This old fashioned weigela is visible across a garden wall.