September 2015

Common field grasshoppers have a large number of colour variations to blend in with almost any background except perhaps the black paint on this seat. Grasshoppers live for a few summer months on grass but die as the cold weather arrives in autumn.

Although mushrooms grow throughout the year, they are particularly associated with autumn. Fly agaric, which is commonly found with silver birch trees, is poisonous.

If this is brown roll-rim, which grows by paths in deciduous woodland, especially with birch, and on acid heathland, it is poisonous.

Not sure of the name of these mushrooms growing in a clump on a road-side ash tree.

Teasels are uncommon in this area. The conical heads are attractive to bees when in flower in summer and to birds who feed on the seeds in winter. The prickly bracts and heads traditionally have been used in the textile industry to raise the nap on woollen cloths.

The seed heads are particularly popular with goldfinches.

The teasel head is a natural work of art.  

The seed capsules of poppies are another wonder of autum. Seeds are dispersed through the pores at the top of the capsule when the stems are shaken by the wind.

Urgent web repairs await this spider.

Disturbed by movement, the spider, which has a sword-like white marking on its back, has quit the web for the safety of a thistle head.