Category: David

Group of mallards swimming in the Severn at Bridgnorth, which seemed to have arranged themselves into a circle. Several were preening on the spot despite the current being quite strong.

I’ve not been able to get out very much recently, so instead I’ve been looking back through images I never got around to posting at the time they were taken.

These are of a large red damselfly female, large but not at all red, resting in the sun on the decking of the footbridge on the pond at Compton Park.

The pictures were taken back in July 2014. The pond and surrounding wetland are now getting overgrown. This summer there were far less damselflies and dragonflies.

Taken the same day at the end of last month, on the same ivy plant. One clump of flowers still in bloom, if going over. On another twig, more favoured by the sun, the seeds were already beginning to ripen.

Fungus, possibly an oyster fungus, growing on a decaying fallen tree trunk in Himley Plantation.

Viewed from one direction the cap looked lilac, not quite as strongly to the naked eye as in these pictures. Seen from the other side it was grey.

From the state of them, they had been out for some days.

One of the West Park squirrels up close. Most likely on an unsuccessful try at cadging food rather that posing for its portrait.

Purple beautyberries, berries of a beautyberry shrub, purple brightening for a gloomy December. These, on a shrub in West Park, are possibly from Bodinier’s beautyberry, a native of China.