#95 - Bracken Fern Reflection

The woods were beautiful this morning, even with most of the trees now being bare and the rich Autumn colours giving way to muted Winter hues. Where the leaves were there are now spaces and intricate silhouettes which lie on the water rather wonderfully.

#94 - Green Fungi Rose

Okay, okay, I know it's twice in one week but isn't this worth repeating myself? And I never even noticed it. What a wonderful world we live in.

#93 - Acorn cups in Bank Haircap Moss

I have been admiring all the gloriously green, trailing moss in the woods this Autumn, and then this morning we, the children and I, were hunched down underneath an Oak tree looking at some mushrooms and we found this starry, cushiony moss in between the roots. It was spangled with tiny little acorn cups that had fallen and got caught in it, like little, round flowers.

#92 - Sunlight behind Beech Leaves

I thought the leaves were like stained glass, translucent in the sun. The light illuminates the colours so that they are alive and the dying leaves, radiant.

#91 - Folded Linden Leaves

Not everything makes a dramatic photograph but I am in love with the subtle graduations of colour that make up the autumn tree-scape. This Linden tree hardly changed at all, just faded gently from green to pale yellow and then, almost with a sigh, laid down its heart-shaped leaves. 

#90 - Fungi rose

I never imagined having a favourite fungi but the Trametes versicolor blossoms beautifully on the edges of fallen trees in wavering lines of grey. 

#89 - Leaves holding Sunlight

When the beech leaves are on the edge of dying they curl slightly. Darkening to copper they hold the sunlight, glowing like embers in the woods. 

#88 - Frosted Leaves

First frosty morning walk of the year for us.I had been up in the hills taking photographs of the sunlight coming through the leaves and when I came down onto lower ground I suddenly noticed I was walking on grass that was crisp and white, and the edges of the leaves and their veins were rimed with crystals. And my heart gave a little leap.

#87 - Path

Visiting the cousins today in Wolverhampton. I have missed going out every day this week, I've been working and the days are so short. I think I could take photos of autumnal beech leaves all year round. I have a new dream home, as well as being by a lake it now needs to be in a beech wood. 

#86 - Whitebeam

I have been eyeing these trees from across the park for a few weeks now as they are strikingly multi-coloured, green leaves mixing with shades of yellow and red deepening to a rich burgundy. I had no idea what kind of tree they were and wondered if they were some kind of ornamental species as they are so, well...ornamental. Apparently, they are native but uncommon in the wild which would explain why I've never seen one. 

#85 - Shades of Gold

Every tree seems to have a different palette. Even the same types of tree - the maple next to this one had leaves of just a slightly duller gold, a little muddier. This particular tree was radiant this morning, just glowing. 

#84 - River Edge

The field maple has been pale gold for weeks now, I think it was the first to change. It's not as gorgeous as some of the other maples with their rich ochres and coppers but it's lighter yellow tones have a light-hearted quality, less majestic, more like cheerfulness.

#83 - Convolvulus

Convolvulus twisting round coloured stems in the undergrowth. This photo seems somehow fitting for today which has been bitter-sweet, saying goodbye to a friend who lived her life well. 

#82 - Colourful roots

More beech leaves - this time I had the children with me so we all collected different colour leaves, well, me and the two girls, the boy gave up after finding a few green leaves and announced that his hands were "pale". I assume he meant "cold" because he put them in his pockets and played at skidding down the banks while we carried on with tree dressing.

#81 - Fallen Leaves

A carpet of maple leaves...

"...I place my feet with care in such a world" (from The Well Rising, William Stafford)

#80 - Empty Acorn Cups

I love these white rimmed Acorn Cups, circles within circles, so crisp against the green grass. I must crush half a dozen with every step I take in our park but how perfectly composed they are even when their usefulness has passed.

#79 - Circle of Beech Leaves

I think the whole reason I started this blog was so that I could stand in the woods this morning, in the rain, and arrange beech leaves into rings of colour. As  I worked in the mud I heard myself whistling softly, "Joyful, Joyful, Lord we Adore Thee" and I don't know if it was because  the creating was making me feel so happy or because the trees seemed aflame with glory.

#78 - Autumn Colours

A traditional Autumn wreath; burgundy, russet, copper and sunshine yellow. Maple leaves again I think, their leaves are like the way children paint Autumn leaves. They are carpeting the park beautifully, we wade through pools of gold every day.

#77 - Tortoiseshell Fungi

More Tremetes Versicolor, this one with beautiful tortoiseshell stripes.

#76 - Holes in a Beech Leaf

Shorter days make me sad but there is something about the sun hanging so low in the sky, it's a different sort of light and it looks at its best coming through trees.

#75 - Peacock coloured Fungi

Walking through the woods yesterday, in the rain, we kept stopping to admire all the fungi. There are lots of clusters near the waters edge, the children call them 'mushroom cities' because they look like miniature citadels or fantasy castles with higgledy-piggledy roofs and towers. Some of the trees have fungi 'steps' climbing their trunks and when we looked closer at one particularly be-fungied tree we saw all these wonderful colours. It's called Trametes Versicolor, or commonly, Turkey Tail, but I think these blue and greens look more like a peacock's tail. Stunning. 

#74 - Copper Beech Leaf Buds

We were admiring the catkins on the beech trees in a local park, letting the dog run whilst waiting for the littlest girl to come out of nursery, I was thinking the park was rather unremarkable when I suddenly came across a tree with purple catkins and exquisite little purple leaf buds.

#73 - Rowan Berries

I wasn't too keen on the gaudy orange berries of the Rowan trees but they have now turned to a delicious scarlet and lie  in glistening pools under the trees, contrasting with the rain-blackened twigs. 

#72 - Creeping Cinquefoil Calyx

As the children busied themselves in the puddles, I climbed a hill and found some yellow flowers with slim scarlet stems trailing over a slab of rock. They were brightly golden and valiant in the wind, clinging to the ground, but like the Dylan Thomas line, "so tremulously like a dream" if they were lifted up above the grass, disintegrating instantly in my hand. But the calyx were beautiful in their own right and robust enough to survive a few scatterings as I tried to take a photo on the bench underneath the oak trees.

#71 - Saxifrage and Cranesbill Leaf Rosette

Of course, not being very botanically minded, the children and I just called these 'pretty round leaves'. It was my daughter, the big one, who kept noticing the purple hearted saxifrage leaves growing in the meadow grass. Later on, we walked through some woodland and saw the lacy edged cranesbill leaves, also practically under our feet and also, co-incidentally, round. It's tricky identifying leaves without any sort of flower so I may be wrong of course. Noticing all these lovely things growing in the grass yesterday made me think of the Yeats poem, "I have spread my dreams under your feet; tread softly because you tread on my dreams."

#70 - Mushroom Ring

We almost walked over these sweet, daisy-sized mushrooms sprinkled in the waterlogged grass. I know very little about fungi but after a bit of research I think the orange one is 'the oaks friend' or oakbug milkcap (which makes sense as we have a lot of oak trees in our local park), the white one is quaintly named, 'Fairy Ring Champignon' and the grey one could be anything as there seems to be hundreds of small grey mushrooms in the uk - I shall do further research when I have a few hours to spare. Or maybe not. 

#69 - Willow Shoots

"For there is hope for a tree,
if it be cut down, that it will sprout again,
and that its shoots will not cease.
Though its root grow old in the earth,
and its stump die in the soil,
yet at the scent of water it will bud
and put out branches like a young plant."
Job 14:7-9

The park is starting to look very Autumnal now, everything is dying and the colours are slowly becoming duller and darker. These willow shoots caught my eye as they were so bright - some broken off twigs, lying in a careless pile under a huge, old willow tree, have started to sprout again because of all the rain - it reminded me of this verse in Job about 'the scent of water'.