They don't give up

Although they are a bit tatty at this time of the year, buttercups, daisies, dandelions and clovers keep on blooming in a quiet way.

The creeping buttercup

   

The common daisy

    

Now I took photos of some dandelions and some autumn hawkbits but I can't tell which is which from the top-down photos.

  

Actually they are very different from the side, most notably the flower stalk, which is wiry with the hawkbit while a dandelion stalk is a hollow tube, as in this photo of a dandelion clock.

    

White clover looking in better nick than its red cousin.

mmmmmmmmm

Wasps and ivy

Peter Acton found this miniature wasp's nest inside the roof of his shed, a little smaller than a golf ball, he said.

I had previously removed one from inside my shed too.  Why do the queen wasps abandon these little nests?  Do they decide it's not such a desirable location and move on to build another nest?  More likely something gobbles them up before they can lay their first eggs.

If you look inside this one below, you can see seven little hexagonal cells waiting for eggs.  Normally the queen lays a few eggs and feeds and nurtures the grubs until they pupate.  When they hatch out as workers, she settles down to egg laying while they enlarge the nest, build more cells, and care for the grubs which become their sister workers.  By the end of the summer a nest can contain 20,000 individuals.

But then the queen stops laying and the workers go on holiday, heading for your beer or jam.  They also like fallen apples and plums.  Or nectar if they can find it.  This lucky little wasp found some ivy flowers.

Ivy supplies nectar in the autumn and berries in spring, the other way round from most plants.  You can see that some of the flowers are already turning into brown berries, which will be black when ripe.

Haw haw haw!

The fruits of the hawthorn are called haws.

They are a plentiful food for blackbirds and thrushes.

Fattening up for autumn

Leaves carpeting the ground for the autumn solstice.

In the sunshine some of the many webs show up, strung between twigs and dead plant stems.  

With somebody waiting in the middle for a passing meal.

Viewed from the other side, you can see she is all curled up, with each foot on a different line, ready to detect any unwary insect that flies into the sticky silk.

Sweet chestnuts

 Even without the very prickly nut cases you can recognise a sweet chestnut tree by its long leaves with forward pointing teeth along the edge.  The leaves helpfully persist on the ground through the winter.  

The shell around the nuts is much pricklier than a horse chestnut or conker.  The trees are not even distantly related but the fruits have a very slight resemblance.

These are the nuts you can eat, if you can find any fat ones - not the conkers.  Our Christmas chestnuts usually come from warmer places like Italy.

Privet hawk

Peter Blenkiron spotted this splendid caterpillar.  You can see a tiny 'horn' at its rear end, which shows it is a hawk moth caterpillar.  The distinctive white and purple stripes and the shiny black horn are clues that it is a Privet Hawk Moth. 

It is pretty well grown and so is probably looking for an underground retreat to pupate in for the winter survival test.

A few years ago I saw two teenage lads looking worriedly at one of these on a path.  They wanted to save it from being trodden on but were apprehensive because of the horn.  It looked like a sting -  which it is not.  All four of us were relieved to get this sorted.

Autmn fungi in different habitats

This Brown Rollrim fungus grows in the grass.  If no-one has kicked it you can see it just inside the main entrance to Filnore Woods.

Photo on left taken 24th Sept and then 5 days later. 

  Below: seen from the side.

An underneath view would be interesting too but I don't like to destroy these rather magical structures

In contrast these Common Puffballs prefer to grow in leaf litter.

 When they are mature, raindrops falling on them puff clouds of spores out through a little hole in the top. 

These Sulphur Tuft fungi inhabit old dead stumps and help to recycle them.

They're not full grown yet.

And this Artist's Fungus bracket grows on dead or living wood.

You can find it on the fallen beech trunk near post 14.

Fungal identification thanks to local mycologist Simon Harding