Category: David

Mistlethrush perching on a twig on the edge of Compton Park.

It didn’t seem worried that I was only a few yards away.

The distinctive cluster of the flowers of butterburs, which appear before the leaves.

Spring is finally getting going. The buds were beginning to appear on lime trees last week.

View from the bridge where Windmill Lane crosses the canal at Wightwick.

King Alfred’s fungus (alias coal fungus or cramp balls) grows on trees or dead wood. It does indeed resemble pieces of coal or, perhaps, buns which have been allowed to burn by a fugitive king.

The layers, visible in the partially eaten example above, mark phases of growth, like tree rings.

Like the horse’s hoof fungus in the previous post, cramp balls are inedible, but the dried interiors can be used as tinder.

A mature specimen of this bracket fungus.

Pieces from the interior of such a fungus were being carried by Ötzi the Iceman when he died. It can be used as tinder to help in lighting fires.