Category: David

Pony with Appaloosa-style (or leopard pattern) coat happily grazing. A horse with a similar coat is pictured here.

Carr is woodland on damp or marshy ground (and thus prone to flooding) where alders and willows are the dominant trees.

Here the carr is in the Packhorse Bridge Nature Reserve, by the river Blythe at Hampton in Arden.

Another picture of early-morning frost, on the leaves of a bramble.

The leaf on the left has been in the sun for longest: its frost has almost all melted.

The remains of one of last year’s hollyhocks lit by gentle early-morning sunlight.

Earth star fungus, probably Geastrum coronatum, with what appears to be a lid or protective cover detaching itself from the sporocarp, the spherical structure containing the spore-creating gleba.

I’ve never seen anything like it before, nor any reference to anything similar in my collection of Field Guilds or online – possibly because I haven’t looked hard enough.

Seen again five days later. The “lid” was raised higher, but still not separated from the rest.

The path connecting Freshwater Pool (featured yesterday) to the Barley Field in the Smestow Valley Nature Reserve passes through a narrow gap between a copse and a hedge.

After rain, the gap becomes muddy, then churned up by the heavy traffic of dog walkers, joggers and other walkers. Freezing solidifies the patterns that have been created.