David

Two squirrels which were busy chasing each other around on the ground during my last visit to Himley Plantation. When my path got too close, they retreated up the same tree, so the chase was probably not a territorial dispute.

Delicate pink mushrooms – rosy bonnets (Mycena rosea) – growing in Himley Plantation, just yards from the spookier forms of some dead man’s fingers.

Back in the summer, this fallen bough in West Park lake was the favourite posing place of the resident turtle. It’s somewhere deep in the mud, having its long winter sleep. The bough now left for the gulls to squabble over the limited standing room.

Magpie, cautious as it climbs down the wall for a drink of water from the West Park lake.

Fly agarics, bright red caps, but the white flecks of the “warts” over the caps all washed way by bouts of heavy rain. The so-called warts are the remnants of a veil which protected the caps as they pushed their way through the soil.

Blue roundhead (Stropharia caerulea) mushrooms. These are from the same small grouping, growing in long grass on tow different days. On one of the days, the lighting conditions gave the blue tinge to the fungi a more marked effect.