Autumn Changes the Dells

Autumn has been arriving slowly over the past few weeks but in Colinton Dell, by the Water of Leith, today it was suddenly fully autumn with many of the paths carpeted with fallen leaves

the rosebay willowherb stunning in its autumnal hued foliage

and the late flowering ivy buzzing with wasps and hoverflies (a few of which you can see in the photo below if you click on it to enlarge it and look carefully!)

Here's an Eristalis sp hoverfly, there were several of them around, though the wasps eat them! The hoverflies may well stay round until next month.

The sunshine on the ivy makes wonderful shadows (I'll share more of these for Shadow Shot Sunday this weekend!)

The pictorial wildflower meadow in Spylaw Park still looks wonderful, though there weren't many insects feeding on the flowers today.

More obviously autumnal than those flowers are these puffball fungi

Autumn is a wonderful time for photography and Living Edinburgh has set up the Twitter hashtag #AutumnChangesEdinburgh for autumnal photos of the city and its greenspaces. There's a competition too, so if you're on Twitter, Instagram or Facebook and spend time in Edinburgh, why not take part?