Category: David

A tall introduced plant which prefers to grow in damp places, Himalayan balsam is often found growing in clumps near the canals locally.

A fungus which grows in a clump from buried wood. “Blushing” because sometimes has a pinkish colour.

The first two pictures are of the same clump from different directions. The other image is of an older clump.

Many of the squirrels in West Park are now so used to being fed that they solicit food. This one has learnt that sitting up and begging can be an effective technique.

Discarded hazelnut shells rest on the GWR blue bricks opposite the one-time Tettenhall railway station, now the Smestow Valley Reserve Ranger Station.

Grey squirrels eat the hazelnuts while they are still green. In the long term this threatens that hazels might die out in the wild in Britain.

This is probably the largest of the caterpillars which featured in last week’s post: this picture was taken 36 hours later than those.
Drops of water sticking to some of the creature’s hairs are the remnants of overnight rain.

Fairiesbonnets are tiny inkcap mushrooms – less than a centimeter high. They grow in troops.

These two troops give some idea of the range of colour. The pictures were taken at the same time; the troops were only a couple of feet away from each other, just inside West Park’s South Gate.

This picture shows all but a few stragglers of the patch with the paler coloured variant (middle photo).