David

Small and delicate looking bracket fungi with semi-circular ridges which looked like growth rings. The fungus was growing on a fallen bough.

Current canalside entrance to the Newbridge badger sett: views from two angles looking into the tunnel dug into the sandy soil.

Black-headed gull standing on one of the posts near the ferry across the river at Stratford on Avon.

Abandoned and overgrown entrance to a badger sett where a badger trail comes down from the Smestow to the towpath at Newhampton.

The sett entrance is just yards from this alternative way in, still in use. The old hole is so well covered in vegetation that I only noticed it on a second visit to the site, even though I thought I had had a good look around the first time.

The belief that birds pair up on St Valentine’s Day may be fakelore: it’s first mentioned in a poem by Geoffrey Chaucer. But many birds have indeed been displaying themselves this month.

This male blackbird was standing on a tree stump by the lake in West Park, appearing to be showing himself off.

Adlers carry last year’s fruits (or rather cones) even as the catkins which will produce the new year’s are on the tree.

These cones were on an alder at the edge of the Smestow Valley Barley Field about a month ago.