Wolves Wild

Surely one of the stranger-looking varieties of hens.

A ditch in a marshy field by the footpath heading away from the village via the churchyard is filled with abundant watercress. The last flowers were still blooming a few days ago.

Young specimens of this bracket fungus are considered a delicacy, in Germany for example. In this first picture, the fungus is beginning to turn orange, having been around for a few days.

The paler yellow here was the shade when I first saw the fungus.

From the slime trails around it, it had already been attracting the attentions of one or more slugs.

I don’t eat wild fungi anyway, but the slugs were welcome to this one. The cherry tree which was its host was growing only a few feet from the ring road.

A frog keeping as much of its body as possible under water to keep cool during the warm spell last week.

The heather flowers were beginning to go over last week, but were still making a show on Highgate Common.

A lone bumble bee was prospecting for nectar.

The paler flowers below were in a small clump of heather on Toposcope Hill in Baggeridge Park.

The conifers behind the mill are on the edge of the Forestry Commission wood the Million, near Kinver.

A common bracket fungus, which grows on dead wood – here a tree which had been felled.

View from a bridle path across the valley of the river Stour to Kinver church on the first ridge over the village.

The slightest breeze was enough to add an arty blur to this close-up of autumnal leaves.

The Japanese acers which are planted at various spots in West Park have now begun to put on their annual display of autumn colour. What is noticeable is the variation between the displays of the different trees. I don’t know whether this is because they are different species, or that different parts of the park have different micro-climates. These pictures were all taken within a few minutes of one another last week.