Category: David

Ear fungus growing close to the ground on a fallen tree trunk.

Frosty bramble (blackberry) branches with their vicious thorns.

Some treescatkins start appearing before the start of the year, so they are often covered in frost on cold mornings. Hazel are among the first.

This West Park magpie landed and started watching me when I was taking pictures of a squirrel in the next tree. It seemed to be hoping that I would feed the squirrel, so that it could slip in and get some of the goodies.

Abundant gold-green coloured catkins on a hazel bush lit by bright sunlight, looking to my eye like streaks of falling rain.

Scarlet elf cups are distinctive small fungi which grow on dead wood, appearing during the winter. This season’s first ones started appearing at a couple of sites in the Smestow Valley Nature Reserve in the cold spell between Christmas and New Year.

This was the largest individual I managed to find, a centimetre or so across, with growths of frost crystals inside and out.