Category: David

Three herons on the south-facing side of an island in the lake at West Park. The one getting the most pictures here was a mature male. It was clearly visible standing in the direct sun on the branches of one of the weeping willows. A second was harder to spot, almost hidden by foliage as it stood deeper within the same willow.

The third bird was right by the edge of the water. when I first arrived. However, it retreated up the beach while I was getting my camera out, and was in the shade, half-hidden by the trunk of a conifer, by the time I could picture it.

mushrooms, quite large, and with distinctive, bright red caps, in Himley Plantation recently. Despite their striking appearance, I have no identification to offer for them.

The long line of shaggy parasols, revisited precisely a week after I’d first pictured them. All were now at their full height, and for most, the caps had now spread and flattened. I was surprised that few, if any, had been kicked over.

Tiny purple berries in tight clusters spread around the bush, purple beautyberries live up to their name in the autumn. Close-ups of the berries of a bush in West Park.

A pile of mushrooms on a lawn – the same lawn with the shaggy inkcaps below.

Species unidentified, but they were perhaps a little to visible for their own good. When I passed the same way again a day later, there was no sign of them whatsoever.

The October full moon, a few minutes before it set behind Tettenhall ridge. The October full moon was sometimes actually called the hunters’ moon, following on from September’s harvest moon. The other flowery names which are increasingly bandied about on the internet and elsewhere are from the traditions of some native north Americans, if they are autherntic at all.