David

Hoof fungus is quite a common parasite of trees, usually found near the base of an infected tree’s trunk. There were fruiting bodies all round the stump of one of the trees in West Park. It looks like someone has spilled a lot of cocoa powder on the lower of these two fruiting bodies. That’s some of the spores which have been released from the lower surface of the fruiting body above.

Some kind of bracket fungus growing on one of the whitebeams on a quiet residential street. It’s still fairly young. It may develop markings later, and make it easier to identify its species.

It’s getting to be that time of year when the various sorts of fruits and berries start to fatten up and to change colour as a visible sign of how ripe they are. These were on a cotoneaster in the Smestow Valley Nature Reserve at Newbridge.

The first heron we’ve seen in West Park for some time: probably the first this year. It was on one of the fallen willows on the island, a popular perching point for visiting herons, busy preening its feathers. By the next day it had gone.

A sugar stealer: feathery wind dispersed seed, possibly from a willowherb, trapped a few inches from the soil by the vegetation it landed in.

The honey bees preferred to gather from water mint (yesterdays’ post). Bumble bees were all on those teazles which were still flowering. This teazle was also distinctive in having white flowers: most, including plants near this one, are purple.

A frog lurking in a garden, half-hidden by grass and other vegetation.

Compton Park pond on a sunny day last month. There were quite a few bees on the remaining flowers. The ones on the water mint were all honey bees. As far as I could see, the water mints were the only flowers honey bees were visiting.

A group of boletes growing under a beech tree by Richmond Road: probably associated with the tree. I find many boletes hard to distinguish, but iNaturalist suggests these many be rooting boletes (Caloboletus radicans)

One of the teazles on the Compton Park pond, flowering finished. Light coming mainly from behind emphasised the prickly seed head and stem, and caught the small web which a spider had made.