Category: David

Velvet shanks – fungi which like the coldest months of winter, usually quite easy to spot, bright yellow / orange growing on tree trunks and stumps. I’ve not actually managed to see any yet this year, so here is a picture from 2010.

Tiny yellow mushrooms growing among among the feathery strands of a lichen on a broken bough.

Among a large group of mixed waterfowl by the edge of West Park lake, a mallard drake started attacking another, confronting beak to beak. The aggressor forced the other bird into the water, then also jumped in. It then started aoother beak to beak assault on a third mallard drake. I got my camera out to take this picture just as it once again showed its dominance, forcing the retreat of its sceond victim.

This bold robin was already quite near to me when I spotted it on a buis in the WI Garden of the Castle Grounds, Bridgnorth. Then it flew even closer, landing on the remains of a plant stem which seemed hardly wide enough for it to stand on.

Turkey tail fungus, common on tree trunks and stumps. The varicoloured array of fruiting bodies are the sign that the wood under the bark is suffering from white rot. Here a group of the fruiting bodies are seen from above and below.

View over a bend in the River Avon a little upstream of Clopton Bridge, Stratford. A near windless winter morning with reflections in the almost flat water, and the background trees gently faded in the thin mist.