Author: David

This snowdrop was coming into bloom yesterday by Kinver church.

Swans on the partially frozen Staffs and Worcs canal at Castlecroft (above) and Compton (below).

This series of pictures of black-poplar catkins was taken yesterday.

My reference sources, some 20-30 years old, give the flowering season as March/April.

More from the experiment in black and white. This is Autherley Junction, where the Shropshire Union canal joins the Staffs and Worcs.

Taken yards from the previous picture, but turning round to face to where the Shropshire Union heads off towards Cheshire.

These two are at Aldersley Junction, where the Birmingham canal network meets the Staffs and Worcs.

One of the larches in the grounds of Bantock Park, covered in snow and ice over Christmas.

A pair of swans on the Wyrley and Essington canal preening yesterday.

Patterns formed after the coldest night of the hard spell.

Moorhen standing on the ice of a frozen section of the Staffs and Worcs canal.

This tiny fungus grows on rotting wood – often on tree stumps, as here. It is named for its supposed resemblance to the wick of a candle which has been snuffed out.

An experiment in black and white. Pictures taken by the (mostly) frozen Birmingham canal as it drops from the Black Country plateau towards Aldersley Junction. Above is the rubbish incineration plant.

Next is Broad Street basin from Broad Street. Below is the railway viaduct across the canal and Stafford Road.

The house whose roof is pictured is on a normally fairly busy minor road. Wood pigeons and magpies are normally the dominant birds perched on roofs. But this was mid-morning on New Year’s Day, and very few motorists were about yet.

These spiders’ webs were anchored in the seemingly dead stems of an ivy a few days ago. They were showing their form clearly because of the hoar frost which had formed on them.