LITTLE ARTY JOURNEYS: Two morning walks at Coombe Wood

THURSDAY

I arrived just before a large party of young excited schoolchildren.

The pond was glittering in the sunlight

The school party seemed to be following me. "This is a gunnera" the teacher shouted over the children's chattering voices - "its leaves can grow to 6 feet wide - this is a young one. There are fish in the pond. Come and see - but you need to be quiet so you don't frighten them away." No one was quiet. I scurried on up the path and round to the prairie beds.

Raindrops hung on petals and stamens making the flowers glint in the sun

Shiny droplets dangled on thin stems like strings of diamonds

I've never actually seen a bee's proboscis in one of my own photos before but it's just about visible on this fluffy bee. It is dark red and thicker than I imagined

Honesty seeds

Spiders webs glistened

The banana flower

Sun shining through banana leaf

Banana trunk

A long stream of children passed by and headed off up into the woods, their voices disappearing into the distance again. I love it that they were enjoying being there and learning about nature - I just didn't want to get tangled up in them and get in the way as I stop so often to take photos

I've never noticed berries on lily of the valley before

These are the seed pods of the plant which has flowers that remind me of the icing part of pink iced gem biscuits, Now they're round and smooth and have a spike sticking out of the top

I noticed a couple of tiny puff ball mushrooms

then I realised there was a whole flock of them near where they had been last year but spreading out across the path instead of hiding under the azalea

There are some brown leaves on the wollemi pine - I don't think that should be happening - I think these are supposed to keep their leaves

Beech tree leaves turning gold

Mahonia leaves turning red - and looking like the grain on leather

I leaned in close to take a photo and knocked a web disturbing a large spider which scurried to hide and curled up behind the cluster of five pink berries

By the gate there's some really tiny moss - many of its flowers (or seeds or spores - not sure what they are) have turned peachy orange and some had a raindrop hanging on them

FRIDAY

By the wire fence in the car park there's a wonderful mass of tiny pink cyclamens which was lit up by the low sunlight (I've just checked the plural of cyclamen - apparently it can be either cyclamen or cyclamens)

A spider spinning its web by the pond

The gardener appeared to be vaccuuming leaves etc.

Soft fluffy grass seed heads sparkling in the sunlight

Many of the globe thistles (I think that's what they are) are dying off now . I really like their wonderful curls and the addtional decoration of spiders web threads

There are still a few more new ones opening

When these pink flowers fall off they leave attractive red grass-like stems

There are still a few more buds on the fluffy pink flowers

A lot of bees were enjoying the flowers in the prairie beds. The base of each pink fluffy flower looks as if it has been braided

There are so many different grasses

At last - I managed to photograph the front of a bee (the right way up) with the proboscis partially visible - although slightly hidden by the anthers and petals

While photographing something else I noticed these tiny flowers/seed pods

The red grasses caught the light

A closer look at the sunflower seeds

I can't resist these - the tiny spiders web threads add more dainty lines to this dainty plant

Many dark pink buds about to open

Pattern in a bud

Twisty seed pods

Masses of berries - this is where I'd disturbed the spider in a previous photo

When passing this shrub the colourful leaves catch your eye but the flowers look insignificant. Looking closer - the lilac anthered stamens spill out of each tiny milky white cup

I can never resist another look at the banana flower to see what it's doing next

Stripy ribbon-like structures have formed

Looking closer at the stem

Standing back a bit

Acer changing to its autumn colours

Berries

The pollen sacs on some of the bees were bright orange rather than yellow. This one, coming in to land, looks as if it's wearing big orange legwarmers.