Under the Greenwood Tree

I've just started to read Hardy's Under the Greenwood Tree and the phrase seems appropriate as a bit of shade is welcome as the temperatures climb again. The great trees of the woods are standing tall and broad in the early autumn sunshine, showing off their fruits and (in the case of the oaks) showering the ground and passers-by with them too.
It is, therefore, safer to sit under a hornbeam whose seeds are rather less bullet-like.
No doubt others are finding fungi, but the dry leaf-litter is giving up few secrets around here, with just this one to be found - and I'll continue my policy of not guessing their names, as I have few enough readers without killing some off by misidentification.

Cranesbills are flourishing on the woodland verges but in this case my lack of identification is due to ignorance, not discretion.

The statuesque Sweet Chestnut avenue at Acrise is showering the road with spiny seedcases, but the harvest is not good this year, and the nuts are thin and shrivelled.

After the farmers' harvest, preparations for the next crop are moving quickly. With care you might be able to make out two twitchers walking along the clifftop, about the spend a couple of hours failing to find a Common Rosefinch.
Whitebeam berries are giving a fine show, and on ivy flowers our new friend the Ivy Bee can be seen.
Under the Greenwood Tree opens on Christmas Eve - which with this lovely weather seems a long way away.