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| Sweet Chestnut Castanea sativa |
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| A good season for Nature's fruits, including apples, plums, pears, chestnuts, beech mast, acorns and much more to be found in great quantities in forests, orchards and meadows. Wild animals have pletny to eat this autumn! |
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| Autumn colours in the Dinaric forests of Trnovski gozd (Trnovo forest), featuring beech Fagus sylvatica, sycamore Acer pseudoplatanus & silver fir Abies alba. |
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| Tinder Fungus Fomes fomentarius (bracket fungi) in a forest reserve in Trnovski gozd. |
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Autumn Emperor Moth Perisomena caecigena, Karst edge near Rakitovec.
A large moth inhabiting
open oak woodland and emerging as an adult in autumn. |
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| Hyssop Hyssopus officinalis, Karst edge near Rakitovec. |
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| Goldilocks Aster Aster linosyris (Galatella linosyris), Slovenian Istria. |
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| Smoke Bush Cotinus coggygria, Karst near Rakitovec. |
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| Praying Mantis Mantis religiosa, Karst near Rakitovec. |
Autumn is in full swing with its magic colours, despite some unusually hot temperatures and prolonged periods of sunny weather. At the moment we're co-leading a trip to Istria in NW Croatia, so not much time to write a proper post. Instead just a couple of recent photos from the Karst region with some of its typical season's representatives. A week or so ago, when we headed to Trnovski gozd (Trnovo forest) to enjoy the autumn colours of the Dinaric forests, we were dragged into the forest by the loud calls of a Nutcracker Nucifraga caryocatactes and observed a Ural Owl Strix uralensis being mobbed by the noisy corvid! An amazing scene you don't witness every day! Hopefully more interesting autumn wildlife to come in the next week... stay tuned.
