Vapourer

Vapourer - Orgyia antiqua

Found some of these outrageously tufty vapourer caterpillars hanging out in the apple tree on the balcony of the Duke of York's Cinema. They are quite common in gardens on a wide variety of plants.

Backyard Reptiles

Lots of sun yesterday morning after a few rainy days - it brought all the reptiles out.

Viviparous Lizard - Zootoca vivipara

Slow Worm - Anguis fragilis 

Slow Worm - Anguis fragilis - with tiny, decorative red spider mite.

Phlebia tremellosa

Monday Mushroom #63

This is Phlebia tremellosa - the jelly rot fungus. It is one of the more distinctive crust fungi with its translucent flesh, wrinkly underside and fluffy upper surface.

Jelly rot fungus - Phlebia tremellosa - spore-bearing underside. 

Jelly rot fungus - Phlebia tremellosa.

Parasola plicatilis

Monday Mushroom #62

Fairly common in parks and lawns, the little, but impressively gregarious Pleated Inkcap - Parasola plicatilis.

Pleated Inkcap - Parasola plicatilis

Pleated Inkcap - Parasola plicatilis

Bitter Bolette

Monday Mushroom #42

This is the bitter bolette - it is a large, robust mushroom that looks rather like a cep, but the flesh is nauseatingly bitter.

Boletus albidus - Bitter Bolette

Boletus albidus - Bitter Bolette

The pale greenish patch in the center is the bitemarks of a mouse or other small rodent - perhaps it tastes better to rodents than to humans...

Boletus albidus - Bitter Bolette 

Dying Embers of the Sun

Fencepost of the Week #51

 I tried to take another photo of the same fencepost about 15 seconds after these, but the sun had vanished taking all the colours and shadows with it.

More Shiny Silk

Wildlife Wednesday #43

The spiders from last week continue to be out in force on the South Downs. The reflective, icy texture of this slope is entirely down to spider silk.

And here is the same slope in closeup:

Coral Fungus

Monday Mushroom #40

Ramaria stricta - Straight Coral Fungus

This is one of the most common species of coral fungus found in Britain. They usually come up in clumps at the foot of a tree.

Ramaria stricta - Straight Coral Fungus

Although in the following two photos they have colonised a raised bed outside of a supermarket in Brighton.

Ramaria stricta - Straight Coral Fungus

Ramaria stricta - Straight Coral Fungus

Ramaria stricta - Straight Coral Fungus

Spore prints are images made by leaving fresh fungi on a sheet of paper for a few hours until they have deposited a visible quantity of spores on the page - they are useful for identification (the colour of the print in particular) and they are often quite pretty - as is certainly the case with coral fungus.

Draw 'Manifesto'

Saturday 3rd November was a big night for drawing in Brighton -  Draw's 6 hour themed life drawing event 'The Drawing Circus: Manifesto' The event was elegantly organised, very well attended and there was a great atmsophere in the place.

This time round I decided to work on a single long sheet of paper folded concertina-wise into a book form. 

All of my work was in charcoal with gold paint used for highlights, lending continuity to the finished product and affording me a really intensive block of practice to hone one technique.

Here is my work from the last big Draw event -> Grimm's Tales. Last time round I worked on a scroll - it was nice to not be impeded by page folds, but the finished scrolls are bulky to store and I rarely open them as they are awkward to browse.

Heavy Seas at Brighton Marina

Scenic Sundays #36

Bright and breezy on the promaenade by Brighton Marina this morning:

Suburban Chainlink Fence

Fencepost of the Week #44

Concrete

Fencepost of the Week #35

There are quite a lot of concrete fenceposts in the south east of England, I used to think of them as a wartime / post-war response to timber shortages, but I suppose the raw materials to make concrete posts have always been more readily available round these parts.

Certain lichens seem to do really well on them.

Up on the Downs

Scenic Sundays #27

 The South Downs: not very wild, but wild enough - and accessible.

Badgers

Wildlife Wednesdays #23

So... what kind of wildlife has Brighton got going for it? Top of my list has to be badgers - there is a healthy badger population in the surrounding countryside and in the city itself. Being shy and mostly nocturnal, I might not get any good photo opportunities, so here's a picture instead.

Badger footprints are one of the most distinctive animal tracks in the UK - look for the broad heel pad, with four toes in front and one a little to the side - almost like a pudgy human hand - and the big claw points some distance ahead of each toe.

There are plenty more kinds of wildlife that I am looking forward to encountering now that I'm down here - dormice and crayfish and Lewes's burgeoning marsh frog population, and hopefully grass snakes.