Wildlife from Wolverhampton and nearby
Sulfur tuft mushrooms can appear during the autumn fungi flush, but they are also one of the few hardier types which can throw up new fruiting bodies even in the depths of winter.
They grow near the base of tree stumps and on fallen logs. When wet, as here, the caps can look like they have a gelatinous surface.
The illustrators of fairy stories usually portray idealised versions of this mushroom, a fly agaric, which are fresher than this one.
It was growing, several years ago, right by the footpath from the centre of Stratford to Anne Hathaway’s cottage at Shottery.
This far, I’ve not seen very many mushrooms this autumn fungi season. So here’s one from a dozen years back. It’s some kind of russula – the group of mushrooms sometimes also called brittlegills. Possibly it’s a charcoal burner.
It was growing in Himley Plantation: a Woodland Trust property which can be good for fungi.
A long-bodied cellar spider, barely moving from the centre of its web, even when I brought mobile phone up close to get these pictures.
Thrusting up where a garden wall met the pavement, some interesting-looking mushrooms. I couldn’t bend down far enough to see stems, but I was assured they were there.
It’s not just Halloween decorations, appearing earlier and getting bigger every year. Some spiders do indeed become more noticeable as the evenings draw in.
Prominent among them are cross spiders. They, or more precisely the females, are big enough to be noticed as they sit patiently in the centre of their webs. They’re common in gardens, and can sometimes be found is sheds and other outbuildings.
The males are much smaller – earlier in the year, the females were, too, before they built themselves up in preparation for laying their eggs.