Taking a Stroll on a Saturday

Its the weekend again.

I was gonna go for a long run, but my partner @dawnsart has returned home from university so we can celebrate her birthday. I can easily reschedule the run for tomorrow, so we can spend some time together.

We didn't want to travel far, so we chose to walk along some of the foot paths along the edge of the village.

The path is actually part of the Viking Way which is a National trail cover 147 miles between Hull (the River Humber) all the way down to Rutland in Leicestershire. I have zero intention of walking the full distance lol, but locally it is used as a regular footpath to link some nearby villages together.

The view North, towards Lincoln

The view South, the path leads towards Waddington

The view was mostly wide and open, with clear blue skies and glorious sunshine.

Our aim today was to visit the small patch of woodland seen here in the picture above.

Why?

Well, we had visited there several years ago (6 years ago in fact!) and it is was long overdue a return visit

Mushrooms, most likely Brown Roll-Rim? - seen in October 2016

We were heading back to the area to see if we could find any more mushrooms to photograph... when we saw this sign:

Not to worry we thought, the sign had been here for many years, and pretty much everyone ignored it!

We skirted around the edge of the trees looking for a way in...

...Aha!

Perfect!, we'll just scoot in through here and...

Oh.

Not a great deal to see here....um...

Ok, not to worry, we headed back outside and follow the edge of the woodland looking for another way in...

Some pretty little Ragwort flowers we saw while wandering around

Oh damn it!

Another Keep Out sign.

We weren't doing very well!

We kept moving forwards, trying in vain to find a decent path into the woodland.

I did catch some pretty shots with the beautiful Autumn colours

Oh man... these gates weren't here last time!

Nope, looks like we are not getting in here today.

Evidently the local landowner has gotten fed up of people traipsing all over the place, littering as they go. After deciding the signs were pointless, he has put up this gate thing instead.

Oh well... guess that means no new mushroom pictures today.

Slightly dispirited, we turned and headed back along the Viking Way Trail

We did see plenty of berries, so in the absence of mushrooms, these will do!

These elongated berries are Rose Hips

And these round berries are Rowan Berries

Correction - these are actually Hawthorn Berries, thanks to my partner who actually knows the names for these plants!

Today had mostly been about landscapes and plants (no fungi of course).

I did get a surprisingly glimpse of a Dragonfly, sunning itself on the path.

A closer inspection revealed it to be a male Darter Dragonfly. I strongly suspect it to be the Common Darter, as I think I can see the lighter stripes on its legs.

All black legs would point to a Ruddy Darter

And I can also say it is a male, as it is red, whereas females of this species are a yellow-brown colour.

And then there was another unexpected find.

This striking flourescent green (and very hairy) caterpillar is the Larva of a Pale Tussock

With that colour, it is pretty unmissable!

In conclusion then.

While we didn't find the mushrooms we hoped for, it was a pleasant enough walk. And hey, it was nice and bright and sunny (and even warm for a time).

And right at the end I was able to see some interesting things after all, which is why it pays to always be prepared!