Wolves Wild

Some of the West Park squirrels are loosing their caution in demanding to be fed. This one came and stood inches from my feet.

Magpie, without a care in the world, strolling along the back of a seat by the Avon at Stratford.

Liquidambar: another tree planted for its vivid autumn colours. This was one of a group on Bancroft Gardens, the grassy area in front of the Royal Shakespeare Company’s main theatre.

The early morning moon, not yet set, can be seen to the right of the tree.

Goblet waxcaps are orange to yellow mushrooms which grow among moss in damp places.

They are tiny, barely poking their caps above the moss.

This one was equally tiny, but the cap is more pointed. It may be a different waxcap species – there were two others nearby

Shaggy inkcap mushrooms just beginning to deliquesce. One of the caps had been broken, showing how the process appears on the underside.

Orange peel fungus looks remarkably like discarded orange peel.

It appears in the same spot autumn after autumn.

Some years it is more abundant than others. This year the individual fruiting bodies are larger than they were last year.

It seems to be ignored by most passers-by, because it looks like litter.

Pictures of the fungus in the same place at this time of year in 2012, 2010 and 2009 here.

Mistletoe growing on one of the apple trees in the same Shottery orchard as the windfalls seen here.

Small tree-lined pond on Turner’s Field in the Smestow Valley Nature Reserve. A bough of the willow which is the host of the fungus in the previous post is stretching across the water on the left of the picture.

Underside of a pale bracket fungus which was growing near the fork in the trunk of an impressively large willow tree.

By November, very few plants still have flowers.

Those that do, like ivy, attract a lot of hungry insects.

Warm sunny mornings are the best time for spotting butterflies like this red admiral.