David

One of the two Bridgnorth goosanders featured a couple of days ago, now come ashore for a preen. The river was high, almost in flood. The usual small beaches of the feeding area by the bridge and the tip of the Bylet were quite deeply submerged. All that was left was small patches of shingle downstream fo the bridge piers.

A little while after seeing the two birds swimming, I returned after a short stroll downstream. One of them had disappeared. Ths one was on the shingle, busy taking care of its feathers.

Two brown birch boletes growing under a birch tree (where else?) by the side of a road in Wombourne.

One heron standing on the trunk of a tree fallen from West Park’s boatiing lake island into the water. When I arrived, it was on a branch over the edge of the water. When I saw it again after I’d strolled round the lake, it had moved to the landward end of the trunk.

Two tiny earth stars, perhaps an inch in diameter, growing in one of the flower beds of the Castle Grounds, Bridgnorth. Not sure what species they are. The only ones I can find in the guides which are this tiny are rare, and even more significantly, found in coastal sand dunes.

Two female goosanders which are frequently present on the Severn near the Bylet at Bridgnorth, here seemingly effortlessly keeping in the same position against a powerful current of a very full river.

Glistening inkcap crowd, one of several clumps growing in short grass at the base of a tree.