Category: David

Still watching the heronry island in the lake at Pendeford Mill LNR. Still not spotted any actual herons. Instead, here were some carrion crows, perched above the emerging foliage, most on what seemed to be a tall, dead tree.

Perhaps a dozen bees were clinging to the soft sandstone of a garden wall on a miserable morning after a cold night. As I took these pictures, the bees were waking one by one and flying off.

I recently visited Pendeford Mill LNR to look for any signs of springtime woodland flowers and see how the heronry was. As I got to the largest pool, where the heronry is high in the trees on the island, I saw what seemed in the distance to be very pale herons. When I got closer, it became clear they were a couple of little egrets. All three egret species seem to be getting to be regulars at sites in the west midlands.

On a return visit a few days later there was no sign of these birds.

Horse’s hoof fungus growing on a fallen tree trunk in Bantock Park. Someone had snapped off the rim of the bracket fungus, revealing the interior, with tubes leading to the pores where the spores are dispersed.

High on one of the trees at the back of Compton Lock, a heron stands watchful.

Bluebells seemed to take a long time this year for the flowers emerging to being fully open. These pictures were taken on the first of the month, by the canal and (the only shot with a fully-open flower) in the woodland at the Pendeford Mill Reserve.