David

Autumn colours on the leaves of an oak in Wom Brook Local Nature Reserve -greens turning to yellow and brown, with a hint of reds.

Artist’s palette, a bracket fungus, growing here on a mossy log, Himley Plantation. A cause of heart rot in a wide variety of tree species. Doesn’t get its name from any supposed resemblance of shape.

The under-surface of fresh fruiting bodies is pale, but darkens when scraped. Can be used to sketch on, with the drawing becoming permanent if the fungus is then dried.

Young lesser black-backed gull (juvenile transitioning to first winter) taking off from the boating lake lake, West Park.

Close view of some turkey-tail fungus, a common bracket fungus – layers of fan-shaped brackets with concentric zones of different colours. Found on the trunks or stumps of dead trees.

Growing in the short grass under a birch tree by a main road in Wombourne, a couple of fly agarics. The domed caps show that they must have been freshly emerged. They had, however, been up long enough for many of the so-called warts to be washed off by overnight rain.

Berries on one of the West Park yews, not quite ripe. The fleshy coverings had not yet become as deeply red as when they are ripe, and the miniature cones inside were still just about visible.