Category: David

Fruit ripening on spindle trees: some by the Smestow Valley Railway Walk at Newbridge, the others in the hedgerow by the farm track at Northycote Farm.

Harlequin ladybird crawling over beautyberry berries on the shrub featured in the previous post.

Beautyberry (calicarpa) berries, with their distinctive pale purple colour, growing on a shrub in West Park.

False death cap mushrooms, not actually dangerous. But they are very easily confused with death caps, which are indeed deadly.

Lichen thriving on the gnarly bark of an elm growing in the hedge of a narrow country lane near Worfield.

Mass of sulfur tuft fungi growing on a stump and one of the fallen tree trunks Himley Plantation recently one clump freshly grown, another clump a few days older.

The woodland management at Himley Plantation encourages a range of fungi and invertebrate species which live by the natural recycling of timber.