Category: David

It’s back at a favourite spot: West Park’s most frequent heron visitor, catching the sun perched in a willow on the island. Looks like it may be a regular visitor again this winter.

Shaggy inkcaps, one very recently emerged in a field near the canal at Compton. Another on the lawn in front of Wolverhampton College, had had just a little more time to develop.

Their caps spread a little, though they never get much wider than an “almost closed umbrella” position of the one outside the college. Then the shedding of spores, as the caps deliquesce: turning into a black slime which can be used to make a kind of ink.

Tiny mushrooms, Himley Plantation. The tightly clustered group were growing on a fallen trunk, the more scattered individuals on a still standing tree. They may have been pinkedge bonnets (Mycena capillaripes).

Lots of bright vibernum (guelder rose) berries glistening in the sunlight. They look like they should be tempting for hungry birds, but they seem to get ignored. Already, some are shrivelling and rotting on the bush.

A mass of mushrooms growing from a moss-covered fallen tree trunk in Himley Plantation. iNaturalist IDed them as sheathed woodtufts (Kuehneromyces mutabilis)

Two squirrels which were busy chasing each other around on the ground during my last visit to Himley Plantation. When my path got too close, they retreated up the same tree, so the chase was probably not a territorial dispute.