David

The cow parsley or hogweed, Anthriscus sylvestris, is normally a summer-blooming plant. This specimen, on the edge of Valley Park, still had fine flowers when these pictures were taken on October 1st.

A closer view of inkcaps already posted here. The picture above is of the newest mushroom, which has a surface still covered in fine white hair-like structures.

The other picture shows the second-newest, with the rim of the cap already marked by the ongoing deliquescence.

These are probably coprinus lagopides, a reasonably common inkcap, though one without a vernacular name. Alternatively, it may be the less frequently encountered coprinus lagopus.

This is a common fungus which grows directly from the trunks of birch trees.
The specimen here was one of many fruiting bodies growing from a fallen rotten birch in a former railway cutting in Valley Park. Possibly the rot was caused by this fungus, which is responsible for the loss of many birch trees.

This fungus is also known as the birch polypore. It was pure white when it first appeared a couple of days ago. The visible parts can survive for up to a year, gradually getting more darkly brown.

Piptoporus betulinus was used to sharpen old-fashioned cut-throat razors. Hence the name.

Sometimes it is possible to see wildlife without leaving the comforts of home.

This Golden Y moth (or is it one of the other Y species?) had flown into the house overnight.

Picture taken 23rd September.

There are several species of inkcap mushrooms, all of which deliquesce. They do not drop their spores out of gills at the base of the cap. Instead, the cap disintegrates giving off the black mass of the spores.

This fly, whose species we haven’t been able to further identify, was totally absorbed in cleaning itself and ignored a very close approach.

This individual is here opening its wings to display their upper surface and its furry-appearing body.

It is the same individual pictured with its wings closed, showing off its comma, here.

Wood-clipping mulch often serves as a matrix for impressive mushrooms, as here this specimen of pluteus semibulbosus.

There were a lot of these comma butterflies on the bushes by the Staffs and Worcs canal.

Walking along the canal from Broad Street basin in Wolverhampton city centre, the flight of locks down to the meeting with the Staffs and Worc canal at Aldersley Junction heads out towards the countryside.

Heading in the other direction, the Birmingham Main Line canal provides a green corridor right across the industrial and post-industrial desolation of the Black Country.

Much of this stretch of canal is lined by reed beds, here of bullrush or reedmace, which provide the shelter for the nests of coots and moorhens.