Wolves Wild

Outer casing of a conker left by one of the paths in West Park after a squirrel had disposed of the kernel.

Ivy comes into flower in October, one of the latest plants to do so.

The flowers don’t look spectacular to the human eye, but they attract lots of feeding insects, especially when the sun comes out.

This hoverfly was just one of many insects feeding on ivy growing by the canal towpath near Compton.

Blackening waxcap which had well and truly blackened. I noticed it on the front lawn of a house near the Castlecroft shops.

One of the trees on the edge of East Park, beginning to change colour last month.

Pool with a brand-new wooden bridge over it.

The pool is on the course of the Graiseley brook, previously culverted, shortly before it joins the Smestow. It has been created as a centrepiece of the housing estate being developed on part of Compton Park in association with the upgrading of the Wolves training ground.

Fly agarics growing beside a footpath popular with joggers and dog-walkers.

These were hard to spot under the grass. Others had been more prominent, so they had been kicked over.

Only three days separated the unripe berries previously posted
from the ones pictured here.

Despite the less than glorious weather the berries had reddened considerably.

A web connecting the holly leaves is holding drops of the recent rain.

Although this moorhen chick on the canal at Compton is half-grown, and should probably have learned to be wary of humans. It swam towards me.

Perhaps it was expecting to be fed.

My ageing guide books claim that wild carrot flowers from June to August. This was one of many wild carrots by the towpath of the Birmingham Canal which was still flowering earlier this month.

Buglosses are a group of flowers related to borage. The plant itself is sturdy, with stiff “hairs” to discourage animals from eating it.

The pale blue flowers seem disproportionately small (at least to me) for such a tall plant.

It’s quite common near to canal towpaths locally, and flowers for most of the summer and autumn.
This one, by the lower end of the Birmingham Canal, still  had lots of flowers earlier this month.

Meadowsweet seems to like a setting right by the canals locally: between the towpath and the water.

This one was still in flower recently

A line of close-planted leylandii create a near-sterile zone around their base, in part because the debris they shed acts as an effective growth-inhibiting mulch.

The mushrooms poking through this debris here are an agaric species, as indicated by the ring on the one in the picture above, which had been disturbed to show at least part of the stem.