One of the sets of antlers and the hobby horse head as used in the annual Abbot’s Bromley Horn Dance, held on the Monday which falls between September 6th and September 12th (inclusive).
The antlers have been carbon dated as originating in the eleventh century; the hobby horse is a modern copy of a medieval original.
The antlers and horse can be seen in the village church when not in use.
This unusually-proportioned mushroom was growing near a bramble bush in Hawthorn Wood, a patch of woodland in the Smestow Valley LNR off Hordern Road. Despite its distinctive shape, I haven’t managed to identify its species.
These pictures were taken in Parkdale, off the Tettenhall Road, about an hour before an early December sunrise.
These bunches of mistletoe were growing on trees within the ring road in the centre of Coventry. The one above was on a tree between the university and the cathedrals.
These bunches were near the top end of Warwick Road. The Greyfriars spire can be seen in the background below.
Time for a reminder that the trees aren’t always bare. This is a woodland clearing in Sutton Park as it was last August.
A fairly common fungus species, and one of the more visible ones now the weather is getting hard, sulfur tufts form large clumps of yellow mushrooms. These were growing on the lawn outside the flats on Merridale Road.
A bracket fungus, a parasite and killer of many types of tree, it is shaped a little bit like the hoof of a horse. It is also called the Tinder fungus because it burns easily, and can be used to start a fire from a spark. Ötzi the Iceman, whose five thousand year old remains were found in an Alpine glacier some years ago, was carrying four chunks of this fungus.
These specimens were growing on the trunk of a tree beside the Smestow Valley LNR railway walk, near the Alpine Way access point. The unnatural brightness of the greens of the moss and ivy leaves in the lower pictures is because I needed to use the on-camera flash to get enough light for the photos.
The remains of Dudley Castle and Dudley Priory seen on a late autumn day.
Another mushroom growing in lawn style conditions.
The most soothing spot in the city centre – if you ignore the noise of the traffic going round the ring road.
Another of these mushrooms growing right by the ring road near to Chapel Ash roundabout.
The bush this was on is growing just inside Chillington wharf.