Autumn walk

After yesterday's gloom, today was dazzling. I dropped Alex at Orton Pit for the last reptile survey of the year, and then headed out to Old Sulehay NR for a mooch round, an antidote to too much time spent at the computer over the last few days.

I was hoping for fungi, but the only interesting ones I found were tiny waxcaps in the limestone grassland. There were several groups of Limestone Waxcap, and also a scatter of what I think is Honey Waxcap, which has a very flat cap with a depressed centre and widely spaced gills (see extra). There were also spiders and crane-flies, as well as a surprising number of flowers still out, including a very out of season Hairy Violet. 

I couldn't resist photographing this male Nursery Web Spider which was hiding under a leaf, not a strategy that worked all that well with the brilliant backlighting!

PS I've just realised that I've been blipping for exactly seven years, although it'll be a while before I have seven years worth of blips, as I've become a bit lax in the last few years. And my very first blip was a spider too!