David

Post scheduled for publication in March, displaced at the time of lockdown.

Butterbur flowering near the Smestow Brook, in the Paddock at Newbridge.

Wrinkled club fungus growing among short grass surrounded by fallen leaves.

Robust-looking support threads holding spiders’ webs festooned on the anti-climb structure on a pipe crossing a side-arm of the canal.

Another plant late flowering this year, a clematis. The more extreme close-ups on a day when the afternoon sun was lighting the flowers showily.

Giant puffball, which was indeed impressively big, growing on an ivy-covered tree trunk in Hawthorn Wood.

Fly agaric mushrooms, under a birch tree by the canal in Compton Rough. All have been nibbled. The smallest one didn’t look like it had been knocked over by vandals, but by whatever had been eating it.

The perpetrator: possibly a badger. Close by, the ground had been disturbed by a badger digging for worms.

These pictures taken on two consecutive days. On the second visit, more of the fallen toadstool had been eaten. Had a badger come back for more?