A common garden spider. The larger female is normally the one which is easy to notice, especially when enlarged as here, presumably with eggs.
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Two years old!
Just for once, no picture with this post.
Instead, here is a link to the very first post on this blog, which was made exactly two years ago.
Since then I’ve only missed one single day. That was later in the first week. Apart from that once, there has been at least one new post every single day – recently it seems to have usually been two per day.
The current score is around eleven hundred posts, featuring well over two thousand images and a dozen or so short videos. As yet I’m not seeing any signs of running out of fresh subjects to picture.
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Wasps feeding on an ivy flower
A patch of ivy growing near Compton Mill lock must have been in a favourable position. It had already started flowering earlier than the rest, over a week ago, so there were wasps all over it, feeding.
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Ripening acorns
The recent strong winds brought down a lot of acorns and conkers before they had ripened. I had taken this picture a couple of days earlier.
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Signs of Autumn – Birch bolete
From the same visit to Wightwick Manor gardens as the previous post. This mushroom is, as its name implies, associated with birch trees, as are several other fungi. Perhaps it is a harbinger of the fungi flush, the autumn period which marks peak visibility.
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Signs of autumn – leaves turning
Last weekend was Heritage Open Day, and the chance to see the garden at Wightwick Manor without the usual entrance charge. Pictured here are some of the trees whose leaves were beginning to take on autumnal colours.
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Himalayan balsam blossom
https://www.flickr.com/photos/davea2007/6130897808
As the name implies, this is an introduced species. It’s very common along the local canals – these particular plants were growing at the edge of the lowest pool by Bratch locks in Wombourne.
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Knight in armour
An imaginative floral decoration in the Castle Grounds Park, Tamworth, placed to guard the start of the path up to the castle itself.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/davea2007/6130333121
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Comma butterfly from below
This comma was resting high up on an ivy. So it was giving a fairly clear view of its underwing, including the pale comma which gives the species its name.
The arch is on a gentle hill at the highest point in the park. It is modelled on the Arch of Hadrian (Athens, not Rome).
https://www.flickr.com/photos/davea2007/6130148343