Wolves Wild

I first noticed the sandy stiltballs in 2011, growing under the hedgerow on the sandy bank at the side of a narrow but busy country lane in south Shropshire. I learned that these distinctive fungi were rare – the ones I had spotted were a couple of miles as the crow flies from the single other known site were they were found in the count.

The next few years, up to 2014, I went back each late summer, and saw them again. Since 2015, I’ve not seen any sign of them. At first, I hoped this was because they were hidden in the increasingly luxuriant undergrowth under the hedge, though the credibility of this hope went down with each annual revisit.

I recently went back once again, this time arriving a few days after the work had been done to trim back the hedge and its undergrowth. No sign whatsoever of the stiltballs. These are pictures I never got round to posting from 2012.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/davea2007/43531895014″

The last honeysuckle flower on the bush, and one bunch of the already ripening berries – this bush flourishing by the Tettenhall Station access to the Smestow Valley Railway Walk at Newbridge.

The WI garden in the Castle Grounds at Bridgnorth features an area with food plants which have decorative flowers. Here, one of the courgettes.

Hornet hoverfly resting on a footpath. An innocuous hoverfly which warns of predators as it mimics a far from innocuous hornet.

Ragged butterfly resting on a thistle seed head. Probably a female common blue – identification solely on the grounds that the only other individual in its vicinity was a male common blue.

Lone wild arum in the middle of a nettle patch., its berries turning red, ripening.