Author: David

Cup fungi, possibly cellar cup fungi, growing on old sandbags which had been left in the corner of a garden. A species which likes damp places (including cellars).

Butterbur flowering at the very start of the year – indeed, it’s possible that the flowers started to open before the end of December. These are from a patch of the plant near the chain ferry, in Stratford on Avon.

Another bird from a trip to the Exe estuary ten years ago. A muddy inter-tidal zone with a stone jetty at Topsham, a good source of food for a pair of wagtails.

Turkey tail fungus, a common bracket fungus, often found on dead and dying wood. Someimes on stumps or, as here, on fallen branches.

I’m still having trouble getting out enough to get new pictures, so I’ve been trawling through my stock of old pictures that I never got round to posting online before.

Ten years ago this month we spent a few days on the Exe estuary, including a morning’s visit to Dawlish Warren.  It’s a long trek from the railway station (or the car park) over the scrub and dunes section of the national nature reserve to get to the bird hide. As soon as the sea front is reached, there’s views back towards Dawlish, with the natural sandstone arch of Red Rock. Ahead, there’s the view across the mouth of the Exe to Exemouth, with its long beach and the cliffs which are the start of the Jurassic Way section of the South West Coast Path.

Care is advisable on the final section of the path to the hide in case of stray balls from the gold course. But the hide gives wide views of the estuary. The extensive mud flats at low tide provide feeding grounds for the many waders and geese which overwinter here.

Included among them, this curlew, hunting for food in the mud just below the high tide mark.

More pictures of frost on vegetation in the recently-established local nature reserve in Stratford upon Avon. On a cold morning last month, the remains of unmown grass from last year.