Autumnal Colour in the Dells

Today is the last day of our staycation, but I persuaded Crafty Green Boyfriend to come along with me to patrol the Dells along the Water of Leith, which I do almost every week. (It's a lovely place for a walk so he didn't need that much persuasion.)

The autumn colours are starting to come through beautifully

and the sunshine brought out the late hoverflies including this Syrphus sp on bindweed which seems to be one of their favourite flowers and also one of the nicest backdrops for a photo of a hoverfly

 and this Syrphus sp on ivy which is a great food source for hoverflies and other pollinators late in the season (which is a good argument for not removing ivy!)

Autumn is of course a great season for fungi and we were delighted by this display on the top of a dead tree stump

Plenty of birds around too, though mostly they were camera shy.

Crafty Green Boyfriend took the fungi photos in this post.