Category: David

Abbreviated seed-cases on a bullrush, showing the velvet texture of the brown covering of the structure.

Candlesnuff fungus (also know as stagshorn fungus) grows as groups of fruiting bodies, up to a couple of inches tall, on dead hardwood – sometimes it seems to be growing directly out of the ground, a sign that there is burried wood present.

It looks a bit like the wicks of unlit, part-used candles, and, on closer examination, branches in a way vaguely reminiscent of antlers.

It is common. While it can be found at any time of year, it is most visible in the autumn and winter.

Carrion crow perching on a twing of a tree directly overlooking the water bridge, so unconcerned it almost looked like it was posing to have its picture taken.

Common darter dragonfly in one of their favoured positions on the handrail of the footbridge across the pool in Compton Park. I was able to get close enough for a picture showing the complex patterning of the veins in the insects’s wings.

Another dewy spider’s web on plants overhaging the canal. The webs featured yesterday were seen on the same morning. In this web, the female cross spider was right in the middle of her domain.

More recently-emerged fly agaric mushrooms at Bantock Park. Growing in the same area as the ones featured yesterday. These had not yet forced themselves all the way through the grass. But they had, unusually, already lost all the white “warts” which normally scatter over the caps.