David

In mid-December, this mandarin drake stayed for several days on the lower pool at Perton, but when I visited just before Christmas I couldn’t see any sign it was still around.

Last week he was back, perhaps having found the spot where people come to feed the birds. He was swimming round near the ducks, geese, swans and gulls by the inlet to the upper pool.

Red flowers (not the more usual yellow) on a hamamelis, a.k.a. witch hazel in one of the front gardens on Finchfield Road facing Bantock Park.

Box, forming the front hedge to one of the houses on Richmond Road, with its tiny flowers almost escaping notice.

Common inkcaps. As they shed their spores, the caps of this and related species of mushrooms turn to a black gooey mass. The goo from this species was at one time used to make an ink.

These pictures were taken two days apart, so the later ones show the process of deliquescing just starting to progress from the rims towards the centres of the caps.

The area of short grass in front of Captains Close on Compton Hill has been producing several different species of mushroom this winter. These small ones, barely rising habove the grass, may possibly have been petticoat mottlegills (Panaeolus papilionaceus).

One of the magpies at the Quarry in Shrewsbury. More cautious than most magpies, it was determined to keep to the far side of the tree.