Another bird portrayal from a misericord at Ludlow.
Pelicans are often portrayed in old churches. They were considered to be a symbols of Christ: it was thought that they killed their own chicks, then, three days later, speared their beaks into their own chests and drew blood which brought the chicks back to life.
These lime nail galls, on the leaves of lime trees, can grow to as much as half a centimeter tall, and range in colour from yellow to red. They are the protective covers of a mite, Eriophyes tiliae.
A speckled wood butterfly sits ready to defend its territory, resting on a sunlit leaf in a nettle patch in the meadow near the Smestow Valley Reserve Ranger Station.
The, as yet unripe, seeds of a yellow flag iris, growing by the canalside.
As they first begin to develop,these holly berries are practically the same colour as the branch they are growing from. They will have turned bright red well in time for Christmas.
Wildmoor sandstone direcly underlies the Bromsgrove conglomerate featured in a post yesterday. Here are two exposures of the rock heading from the Smestow valley towards Tettenhall ridge.
The first is in one of the many former quarries which are cut into this rock along the Smestow valley. The quarry now forms the site of Sandy Hollow, a small cul de sac off Compton Holloway.
The second is again a quarry face: this time the former quarry now forms the grounds of a house on Old Hill, Tettenhall, just downhill from the Mount public house.