Images

October 25th – Pleasingly, I escaped work in daylight, so took the chance to spin along the canal home. On the embankment at Pleck, the fly agaric are dying off now, after yet another spectacular display – but one or two good examples remain, like this huge one.

I have no idea what’s so favourable for these most traditional of toadstools, but there’s a huge quantity grow here. Right in the urban heart of Walsall.

You never can tell.

October 24th – I popped to Telford late morning on a quite errand and noted this row of trees near the cycleway, whose uniformity has always fascinated me. 

All ornamental cherries, the branch at the same height, are about equall in height, blossom and shed at the same time, and never seem to need management at all.

And in autumn they make for great photos!

October 24th – With the immediate rush easing off a little, I took a diversion on the way to work to check out the earthstar fungi a little further up the industrial estate I discovered accidentally a few weeks ago. 

They’re doing wonderfully and there were some perfect specimens.

I love how they look like they’ve been made out of clay or plasticine. Their shapes almost look inorganic.

fungi are fascinating. I wonder if we’ll get any in the usual spot on Clayhanger Common this year? They normally come later, around December…

October 23rd – Specially for a lady in Brownhills who commented over the weekend that I didn’t photograph frogs and toads anymore – well, the truth of the matter is… I do if I see them!

No the damp, dark evenings are here I’m more likely to see the amphibian community taking the air, just as I spotted this lovely frog near a garden fence in Sheffield this evening on my way home.

I love the patterns frogs have; they seem unique in colour and variety from frog to frog.

October 21st – Following the winds of the last few weeks, my favourite tree at Home Farm, Sandhills is now bare for winter, which I find profoundly sad.

There’s hope though, in the gloom. Greening up beautifully in a sheet of emerald green are new winter crops sprouting well which will provide some colour in the dark months.

Despite the gloom, life marches on.

October 18th – And here’s the problem. The clocks haven’t gone back yet – we’re still on British Summer Time – and look at those sunset and sunrise times, as shown by my bike computer. Both my commutes are now mostly in darkness.

This is profoundly sad to me. I love the light, the summer, the green. And for the next four months, I will be deprived of these things. 

But then again, the hunger makes them more special when they’re present.

And so the season’s wheel turns onward.

October 10th – I passed through Birmingham in a hurry on business in the late afternoon. Passing through Cathedral Square, I noticed something I hadn’t before – the wonderful, priapic Alpha Tower as viewed in low sun down Waterloo Street – past an example of nearly every period of architecture in Birminghams history of continual change.

I stopped for a moment, and caught my breath.

October 4th – This is a great Autumn for fungi – everywhere I look there seem to be great examples of different species, and stuff I haven’t seen before.

This interesting clump of button toadstools is growing on the exposed, fractured roots of the spot where a tree fell near the Tannery flats in Walsall. I think it may be some kind of honey fungus, but I’m really not sure. It’s really colourful and the photo doesn’t do it justice.

I suppose this is the tradeoff for the damp, grey autumn – great toadstools!

October 3rd – I’d forgotten my camera, I was heading home late and flustered, what an unfortunate time to witness an astonishing sunset. 

Looking from Kings Hill west to Wolverhampton, across the ether the cellphone mast silently talks endlessly to, the sky was bright crimson, rippled and utterly stunning.

And the phone didn’t capture it at all. Bugger.

Ah well, there will be other sunsets that hopefully, catch me better equipped.