David

It seems that troops of glistening inkcap mushrooms are springing up all over the place this spring. These were on the top of a log which fell several years ago on the dge of the Paddock in the Smestow Valley Nature Reserve.

Flowering almost next to one another on the canal bank, a few yards from Meccano Bridge, a butterbur and a patch of lesser celandines.

Seven-spot ladybird warming itself in the sun as it rested on a leaf by the canal at Newbridge.

Pink flowers, not quite all finished opening, on a flowering current in a front garden at newbridge.

In a tree, almost directly above me, a magpie is watchful but knows it’s safe.

Scarlet elfcups, small but brightly coloured fungi, develop in the coldest months of winter. But they’re long lasting, and hang around, if sometimes partially nibbled, until the start of spring.

They grow on dead wood, fallen twigs and branches and the like. In recent years they have been scattered between the footpath in the Paddock on the Smestow Valley Nature Reserve and the Smestow Brook itself.