Author: David

The Upper Precinct shopping centre, Coventry. Along the middle of the sloping walkway, a series of beds with shrubs and, on the wood chip mulch under the shrubs, a thriving ecology of fungi.

We counted five different species of mushrooms. The most striking, and the most easily identified were readlead roundheads. They are a species originally from Australia, first recorded in Britain in the 1960s, probably carried on imported timber. Now quite common but still most likely to be found on municipal wood chip mulch.

A front garden Japanese acer on a quiet residential street had leaves which had turned vivid reds for autumn before the autumn winds brought most of them down.

Tiny mushrooms on a patch of thick moss at the base of one of the lime trees along the Compton Road. The pattern recognition on iNaturalist IDs them, as Mycena pseudocorticola.

Two Japanese acers in a front garden, with leaves which had turned contrasting reddish colours for autumn, spotted before the wind began to denude the trees.

The dark red colour of this mushroom shows how the blusher got its common name. Usually found with a cap which is much plaer.

I was standing at the edge of West Park lake, watching the waterfowl. A young rat appeared from the undergrowth to mu right, scurried along the bank inches from my feet, and dived into the next patch of undergrowth by my left.