Autumn Mornings

We've been having some really wonderful weather over the last few days and I've been taking B Baggins up onto Blackamoor every morning. Early in the week I was lucky enough to see this stag, he had his little harem with him but they were half hidden in the bracken which is shoulder high now. Of course I only had my small camera with me so it's not a great photo, ever since seeing him I've been taking my Olympus but naturally I haven't seen him again!

This was a real surprise, I certainly wasn't expecting see and catch the scent of honeysuckle flowers in late September.

I've been seeing a lot of fly agaric and some of them have been really big - a good 6 inches in diameter in several cases. These are poisonous mushrooms......

but not to some creatures judging by all the evidence of feasting on many of the ones I see:)

There are still blackberries around but now that Michaelmas Day is behind us they are best left to foxes, birds and mice.

There are quite a lot of different fungi around and I find them fascinating even though I can name very few of them. These were growing on dead wood and I think might be sulphur tuft.

The purple sloes have almost disappeared from the area where they were so abundant a couple of months ago - obviously they have been gathered by people who don't know that they are best picked after they've had a frost on them.

There are a lot of rowan trees up on the moors and the red berries add a lovely splash of colour to the scene especially now that the leaves are beginning to turn as well.

Can you spot B Baggins in this photo? At this time of year he blends into the background so well that he's almost invisible.

This is cowberry which often grows among the bilberry bushes on the moors and they are equally edible. If you click on this photo to enlarge it you will be able to see the heavy morning dew glistening on the leaves and berries.

I'm thinking that this might be a Cep mushroom but I'm not thinking it confidently enough to try eating it!

Ripe elderberries looking really beautiful with the sun shining on them.

I don't have even a guess to offer on this one, if any fungus experts reading and can tell me what this and any of the others are I'd be delighted to hear from you.

I'm wondering whether this is a Shaggy Inkcap?

Now these I do know! The hawthorn trees are absolutely laden with berries this year - a sign of a bad winter to come in old country lore.

There are still plenty of lovely ripe rosehips about. Autumn has so much to offer especially when we get wonderful golden days like these. It's always been my favourite season of the year.

Another of my wild guesses - a yellow russula? There are likely to be quite a lot more fungus photos during October as this is the best month to see them especially if we get some rain. I do keep saying that I hope to post more regularly and it should start happening now. What I'd forgotten is that I would need to put a lot of hours in on the book I'm co-writing about the WW1 soldiers on our local War Memorial. It is just about ready to go to the printers now and they will produce a proof copy and tell us how much it will cost - then we have to persuade our Local History group to pay for it!