AN AFTERNOON OF TREATS

I had a lovely walk today with lots of treats to look at. This Small Tortoiseshell, for one, and dragonflies still frantically getting together before the winter hits us this weekend (allegedly) (extra). Also a lovely colony of Shaggy Inkcaps breaking through (extra). I tried to interest a nearby young family in them, but the kids looked completely unimpressed. I bet if I'd been able to tell them they were deadly poisonous it would have been a different matter, but also a total lie! I just missed a short-eared owl and a marsh harrier but saw a kestrel and a merlin as well as (distant) whooper swans, barnacle geese and others, and I watched some intrepid trappers putting down humane traps for harvest mice so that they can do a small mammal count.

And then I stopped to buy a cream meringue on the way home which is still waiting for me downstairs, so the treats haven't finished yet.