Hey friends!

Can you believe its the end of the first week in November! I’d say that soon the Christmas decorations will be going up…but mine already are!!

One of my favourite things (besides butterflies) is walking through the countryside in autumn when everything changes colour and prepares for winter. So I thought why not enjoy the last few rays of sunshine of go on a bit of a walkabout looking for things in pretty colours and I wanted to take you guys along with me so you can enjoy the relaxing atmosphere too!

Some photo are old, some are new and some of them are pretty!

Ready?

Lets go…

Starting off our walk we have this rather photogenic batch of Honey fungus, while they look really pretty Honey fungus is actually the common name for a few different species of the fungus Armillaria that attack and kill the roots of many woody and perennial plants – I think it basically causes root rot and is quite hard to get rid of.

I think I’ve mentioned before that I love collecting leaves in the autumn – I actually do so through most of the year, just a few leaves or pressed flowers for my journal from every season. This sycamore leaf was so perfectly golden in the late afternoon sunshine.

This is actually a photograph from 2021 that I found on my old cameras memory card (from somewhere in Norfolk I think) but I love all of the different colours and think the little tree looks like its using its fallen friend as a bench.

One of the best things about Red admiral butterflies is that you can see them almost all year round, this one was enjoying the verbena bonariensis in the garden. I love growing this flower in the summer but have yet to actually successfully get one to survive the winter (I always have to but new ones in spring!).

More fungus, I think its also honey fungus which would make sense as it was near the pretty patch in the first picture. Apparently they spread underground through black cords called rhizomorphs (affectionally called bootlaces).

I so enjoyed the rudbeckia in the garden this year, they filled it with wonderful (drought resistant) yellow flowers and kept the pollinators happy. I haven’t cut the dead stems back yet as the seeds will feed the birds and give caterpillars a little bit of protection.

These lovely red hawthorn berries hawthorn are very festive and I couldn’t resist taken their photo!

I love sycamore seeds (Acer pseudoplatanus), often nicknamed “helicopters” or “spinning jennys” here in the UK. I’ve got a sycamore tree in my garden and love watching the seed pods grow – they actually begin life green and dry out/turn brown in autumn before gently falling from the tree.

Finally our last photo of the set is this rather lovely Speckled wood butterfly sitting among the fallen leaves on the floor – I don’t know how I didn’t tread on it, its not the best photo but any butterfly at this time of year is a bonus!

Well that’s it for this autumn themed adventure, I really hope you enjoyed these autumn themed photos and that they bought a little joy to your week.

As always thank you so much for reading my friends, and have a lovely week!