Category: David

Stratford on Avon Tropical Butterfly Farm: an orchid flowering and competing for interest with the many species of butterflies.

Snowdrops, just as the flowers were emerging. These were in the Castle Grounds at Bridgnorth.

Black-headed gulls, some of them just showing the first signs of developing their breeding plumage with the black head feathers, gathering overlooking a beer garden and the river at Stratford on Avon.

By the time this post is displayed, they might actually have arrived. But as I write this there have been no reports of this winter’s waxwing eruption reaching Wolverhampton, though a small group paid a flying visit to Codsall.

So here are pictures of the last time they arrived in some numbers, in trees by the canal at Compton back in 2013.

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.