September 27th – I was lucky to spot this Japanese parasol toadstool fully open on Clayhanger Common on my way to work. They are generally so short lived that actually catching one fully open is quite hard to do.
When open, you can see just how these delicate little fungi got their name – fragile, with a pleated cap no bigger than a 10p piece, they’re one of my favourites.
Twelve hours later it will have disintegrated to nothing.
September 26th – There’s still a bountiful crop of elderberries for the taking out in the hedgerows, thickets and copses of the area. I spent a couple of hours on Sunday afternoon getting very red fingers collecting for a family winemaker.
Elderberries make a gorgeously dark, potent wine that in the the hands of a skilled winemaker can be way better than any shop-bought red wine.
One of the benefits of autumn!
September 24th – Heading for Chasewater from Brownhills along the canal, my recovery ride was slow and plodding, but if it had not been, I might not have looked right down the Spot Path on Clayhanger Common and seen the old dog fox annoyed at my disturbing his duck hunting activities.
One ear flat in irritation and an expression of utter contempt, that fox never changes and we’re old familiars.
Rare to be able to catch a photo – despite his age he’s nimble and still quick on his feet.
September 6th – At Clayhanger Common, I’m pleased to see the Japanese Parasols coming up again this year. Also known as the pleated ink cap, these tiny, delicate toadstools open into a pleated parasol and are beautifully delicate, but also short lived, being gone within 48 hours or so.
Must check if the orange peel fungus and rosy earthstars are back this year, too.
September 4th – This is an interesting find. I’m fascinated by insect galls – the aberrations caused mainly to oak trees by parasitic insects who lay their eggs in leaf and acorn buds and cause them to mutate into safe enclosures for their larvae to hatch and grow.
We mostly know oak apples, the round globes top right – often, like these, with a little hole bored in their surface where the wasp that grew within emerged. Also, I’ve featured a few pictures in the past of the gnarly, fascinating knapper and marble galls. But these are new to me.
This tree at the new pond in Clayhanger was covered in fruits that looked like hops, or alder fruit, as well as healthy, plump acorns. I’ve never seen anything like it, and so asked twitter. My old mate Posh Dave, @tringonometry came to my aid.
These are artichoke galls, yet another variety of insect parasitisation on oaks. You can read about them here.
Both nature, and the usefulness of social media are astounding. Thanks, Dave.
August 22nd – I note a fair crop of acorns this year, and like last, I was caught by false memory with the knopper galls.
I tend to think these parasite-created growths happen earlier in the year than they actually do, and always assume we’re not going to see any when they’ve not appeared by late July. Since they’re caused by a wasp larva hatching in the acorn bud, they can’t occur earlier than the fruit, can they?
The tiny wasp that drills it’s egg in to the fruit bud earlier in the year – coated in a secretion that will corrupt the bud’s growth plan into these curious galls – is pretty unremarkable. But the distorted, knobbly knopper galls are glossy, leathery and fascinating.
Nature can be very weird sometimes.
August 16th – A consolation of leaving work late was a very beautiful, deep sunset. With the cooling temperatures, earlier nightfall and climatic change of Autumn, we’ll soon be in the season of the great sunset again, one of the greatest consolations for the end of summer.
It was lovely tonight but I’d rather summer fought off the autumn a little longer yet…
August 9th – Bind weed is everywhere at this time of year. With the almost pure white flowers and large leaves, this climbing plant is prodigious and often regarded as a nuisance.
That’s a shame really, as it’s another one of those plants that if it was rarer, it would be cherished. It attracts and feeds lots of bugs and bees, and is particularly beautiful.
I was fascinated in the way the one flower had been so selectively nibbled.
August 8th – I felt it again today, that Autumn feeling. Just on the canal at Clayhanger the leaves aren’t even turning and the feathered water lilies are still perfection itself, but the honeysuckle going over, the acorns swelling on the trees and hard quality of the air made me think more of a clear day in October than August.
Is it me, or is anyone else feeling an early Autumn coming on?
August 1st – A return home in steady drizzle that wasn’t as bad as expected. At Clayhanger, I noted the purple rose bay willowherb was flowering well and looking beautiful in the rain.
It won’t be long before this dweller of the wastelands and scrubs goes to seed, and the light, wind-borne seeds drift around on the breeze.
A beautiful plant on a wet afternoon.
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