David

This purple jellydisc fungus was growing on a felled tree trunk in the Northycote Farm Local Nature reserve back in 2015. It’s one of many fungi species which feeds off dead wood, helping to recycle it.

It’s also a species which reproduces by spreading two different types of spores. At different times of year the same individual fungus produces spores asexually and sexually, the former leading to clones of the originating fungus. The clonal pores are released from brownish fruiting bodies in spring, the so-called perfect form with sexual spores as autumn becomes winter.

On this day in 2010, snow on the ground and the beginnings of a layer of ice on the canal.  All pictures taken from the canalside footpath, from the Meccano Bridge which carries the Railway Walk over the canal near Compton, to Castlecroft Bridge carrying a farm track in the South Staffordshire countryside.

The strong blue colour of the snow in shadows was a reflection of the almost cloudless sky. The camera records that colour more accurately that our eyes.

What with the weather and one thing and another, I’ve not been taking many pictures recently. So from now to the end of the year it’s likely that most posts will be pictures I’ve dredged up from my archives, taken in some previous December, but only uploaded now.

To start, a Christmas emu, in Ilfracombe some fifteen years ago. It was in a field on the edge of the town, on the slopes of Hillsborough, where the coast path left in the direction of Combe Martin and Exmoor. It may have been around for some time: web searches throw up reports of an emu escaping and wandering round the town in 2015,

I pass this tree stump in a front garden on most days, sometimes more than once in the day.  Usually, I don’t pay it any attention. But recently I glanced at it and noticed something.

As the pictures show, it’s been there as a stump for some time, and has accumulated a covering of mosses and lichens. But what drew my attention were the distinctive fungi growing on it. They are dead man’s fingers. The fruiting bodies probably grew a month or two back during the autumn fungi flush, but they were still here in December.

Goosanders on the big lake at Perton. They’ve been overwintering in the past few years – I think this is still fairly recent, and the numbers are small.

I walked all the way round the lake without any definite sightings. I got back to the duck feeding platform, and, as I was taking a last look, spotted these birds, There were three males and two females, in a loose group.

They kept diving for fish, heading further round the island. After a few minutes they disappeared behind it.

Once more from the recently pedestrianised area in Wolverhampton city centre, fungi taking advantage of the mulch. These yellow mushrooms seemed almost to be glowing as the sun lit them up.

They’d cleared some of the vegetation on the shore of the larger lake at Perton since my last visit, but the preferred heron perching place is still one where it’s awkward to find gaps between the branches of the trees on the shore to get a clear photograph.

At the opposite end of the same street where the mushrooms in yesterday’s post were, another are of vegetation with wood chip mulch. Two different types of fungi here, peeping out under the leaves.

I think this rat was returning after having a drink from the water in the West Park lake. It was walking fairly slowly back to the cover of the shrubs, then it noticed me watching it, and put on a burst of speed.

A few minutes while shopping spent looking at the vegetation planted in the recently pedestrianised area in Wolverhampton city centre. Still lots of mushrooms growing on the wood chip mulch well after the autumn fungi flush had pretty much petered out elsewhere.

These, possibly common rustgills, were all growing on the same patch of mulch, in the bed at the less frequented end of the street.