Category: David

Little Japanese umbrella mushroom on its thin stem, doing what it can to overshadow the short grass it is growing among.

Autumn is the peak season for fungi, sometimes called the funi flush, especially a damp autumn like we are having this year. One of the species which is doing quite well, as it often does, is lawyer’s wig, alias shaggy inkcaps or more formally Coprinus comatus. They are large enough to be noticeable – the caps two to four inches tall or occasionally more.

I visited the Doxey Marshes Nature Reserve in Stafford last month, only to find the recent persistent heavy rains and overflowing sections of the River Sow had converted it into something more like the Doxey lake. There probably were ways round the water obstacles, but after a while I gave up trying to find them. Included among the consolation pictures I did manage to get were these views of a small flight of Canada geese moving to a different spot on the reserve.

Common gull, juvenile transitioning into first winter. Swimming apart from all the other gulls on the West Park lake.

Ear fungi growing as a mass, with several fruiting bodies close together – the usual habit is gaps between them. Both pictures taken by the Railway Walk, one near Meccano Bridge, the other not far from Himley Plantation.

One of the two Bridgnorth goosanders featured a couple of days ago, now come ashore for a preen. The river was high, almost in flood. The usual small beaches of the feeding area by the bridge and the tip of the Bylet were quite deeply submerged. All that was left was small patches of shingle downstream fo the bridge piers.

A little while after seeing the two birds swimming, I returned after a short stroll downstream. One of them had disappeared. Ths one was on the shingle, busy taking care of its feathers.