Category: David

Two of the larger species of inkcap mushrooms: glistening inkcaps and common inkcaps (which are actually not as common, at least around here).

Bright colour for the depth of winter. Scarlet elf cups come out at the coldest time of the year, growing on dead wood. These were on a wood-pile where they have been showing for several years, near the Railway Walk at Newbridge.

Hawthorn bush which was particularly heavily laden with haws last month, on the edge of a field in the Smestow Valley nature Reserve.

Candlesnuff fungus grows in clusters or rows on dead wood – sometimes on dead wood hidden underground. Less than half an inch high, it can be seen through the winter, unlike most fungi.

A badger stett in Himley Plantation, with two of the entrances right next to each other.

This sett, in West Park, has about a dozen entrances in a small mound of raised earth under s clump of trees.

Buds on a magnolia, developing in the late autumn, before the frosts of winter.