David

Scarlet elf cups are fungi which send out their brightly coloured fruiting bodies when the weather is at its coldest. I’ve made several trips to places where they normally show themselves in January, but so far there’s been nothing this year. These are from 2019

The weather means I haven’t been getting out as much as usual, and then I picked up a week’s work. So far a few days, I’m going to recycle pictures from previous Januaries in the dozen or so years this blog has now been running.

Winter 2013, when snow lay for several days in January. While it was here, waxwings also arrived in force. Here they were feeding on a tree by the canal at Compton, undisturbed by the dog walkers, joggers and me stopping to watch them from the opposite side of the water.

The reed bed at the edge of Perton’s upper pool almost seemed to glow in the early morning winter sun. The heron (I hadn’t seen it for a long time) was alert at the water’s edge. It seemed to be on the watch for prey in the reeds rather than to water.

Bringing a bit of brightness on a dull early January day, alyssum flowering in a front garden.

Before Christmas, there had been a flock of around 25 and 30 goosanders on the upper pool at Perton. Last week, all I could spot was this lone female, on the gravel by the inlet.

Deceiver mushrooms. The markings on the caps are not usual, and may have been left by snails crawling all over the fungi.