Each teazle seed carries what looks like a vicious spike. In fact, a small hook on the end is there to catch on fur or feathers to disperse the seed.
In earlier centuries, teazles were cultivated for their economic role. During the middle ages, England’s most important export was wool; first as fleeces, and later as finished cloths. Teazles were needed for finishing off complete cloths: these had to be brushed with the seed-heads to raise the nap.
Shovellers are another wild duck species which like tufties gather in a small flock on the West Park lake for the harder months of winter. The flock is usually ten to twenty or so birds, with perhaps two or three times as many tufties.
Neither species takes the breads and grains from people who feed the birds (ignoring all the instructions about avian flu!). Tufties dive for their food, and tend to congregate in groups in what may be the deepest water; often midway between the shore and one of the islands. Shovellers swim around in tight circles, shovelling with their beaks, just under the surface of the water, sieving it for small particles. They spend most of the time close to one of the islands, often half-hidden by the overhanging branches.
Like the tufties, it seems that this year the shoveller population on the lake is one where there are more of brightly coloured males.
Another type of fungus with fruiting bodies which can be spotted even in the coldest times of winter. Candle snuff grows on dead wood: stumps, fallen branches, and sometimes on buried roots.
It looks at first glance like the wicks of many partly-used candles, either blackened or, as here, whitened and possibly black towards the base.
Candle snuff is a year-round fungus, but I notice it a lot more frequently in the winter, perhaps because it shows more clearly when it isn’t hidden by foliage.
Some of the tufted ducks on the West Park lake this winter. There’s probably thirty to forty which gather over the hard weather each year. But this year, for some reason, they seem overwhelmingly to be male.
Another fungus species with fruiting bodies able to withstand being frozen solid and thawed out again. Velvet shanks are bright orange-yellow, with a surface which looks slimy if it’s wet.
Grows in groups on dead or dying wood; often on stumps or fallen logs. Sometimes on still standing trees.
Quite common throughout the winter. These were in the Paddock, in the Smestow Valley Nature Reserve.
Another of the fungi species where the fruiting bodies are resistant to cold and can be found even in the depths of winter. These shaggy scalycaps were growing at the base of one of the trees in West Park.