David

This fungus is a type of puffball. Instead of dropping its spores from some downward facing part of the fruiting body, they are released from the top, powered by raindrops landing on the spore container.

They really do look like nothing on earth, not even that much like other puffballs.

This is a tiny fungus, less than a centimeter high. To the naked eye, it can indeed look like the wick of a partially used candle, with ash on the end.

Heron intently staring at the water after prey on Fen’s Pool on the Pensnett nature reserve.

This year, most of the sloes which are within easy reach for picking (and picturing) seem to have disappeared very early, leaving only those which are awkwardly higher or lower on the bush. These were an exception. They were by a path on the Fen’s Pool LNR (the eponymous pool is in the background of the upper picture)

Widely cultivated – for some years they have even been appearing on British supermarket shelves. This specimen was growing wild on a tree stump in the Fen’s Pool LNR, Dudley.

The bright yellow autumn leaves of one of the gingkoes at the Chapel Ash end of Compton Road, caught against a blue sky before the winds started to denude the tree.