David

I pass this tree stump in a front garden on most days, sometimes more than once in the day.  Usually, I don’t pay it any attention. But recently I glanced at it and noticed something.

As the pictures show, it’s been there as a stump for some time, and has accumulated a covering of mosses and lichens. But what drew my attention were the distinctive fungi growing on it. They are dead man’s fingers. The fruiting bodies probably grew a month or two back during the autumn fungi flush, but they were still here in December.

Goosanders on the big lake at Perton. They’ve been overwintering in the past few years – I think this is still fairly recent, and the numbers are small.

I walked all the way round the lake without any definite sightings. I got back to the duck feeding platform, and, as I was taking a last look, spotted these birds, There were three males and two females, in a loose group.

They kept diving for fish, heading further round the island. After a few minutes they disappeared behind it.

Once more from the recently pedestrianised area in Wolverhampton city centre, fungi taking advantage of the mulch. These yellow mushrooms seemed almost to be glowing as the sun lit them up.

They’d cleared some of the vegetation on the shore of the larger lake at Perton since my last visit, but the preferred heron perching place is still one where it’s awkward to find gaps between the branches of the trees on the shore to get a clear photograph.

At the opposite end of the same street where the mushrooms in yesterday’s post were, another are of vegetation with wood chip mulch. Two different types of fungi here, peeping out under the leaves.

I think this rat was returning after having a drink from the water in the West Park lake. It was walking fairly slowly back to the cover of the shrubs, then it noticed me watching it, and put on a burst of speed.

A few minutes while shopping spent looking at the vegetation planted in the recently pedestrianised area in Wolverhampton city centre. Still lots of mushrooms growing on the wood chip mulch well after the autumn fungi flush had pretty much petered out elsewhere.

These, possibly common rustgills, were all growing on the same patch of mulch, in the bed at the less frequented end of the street.

A male blackbird searching under frosted leaves in one of the short grass areas of West Park, finding things to eat.

One of the small brooks which form tributaries of the Smestow. Within the boundaries of Wolverhampton, most of them flow mainly underground, hidden in culverts. This one makes a brief appearance by an open green space between Warstones Road and Pinfield Grove. Seen here as it’s just about to disappear again, at the back of Warstones Library.

Just one heron in West Park on the day these pictures were taken. It was once again standing on the willow which gets the best of the morning sun; standing so still it looked like it was deeply pondering some profound problem.