Category: David

Smestow Brook looking downstream at Wightwick, with an ivy-covered fallen tree trunk lying across the water.

This squirrel is fat. Some of the ones in West Park are now being given a lot more peanuts than are good for them. This one was watching me from a rotting tree stump, hoping to be fed some more.

Smestow Brook and canal, both visible where they run alongsidde each other by the Railway Walk, just a few yards from Meccano Bridge.

Great white egret at Doxey Marsh, already featured in yesterdays post, now flying off out of sight, its silhouette showing the huge long beak and trailing legs before it disappeared.

Redlead roundheads, like many fungi can be seen from summer onwards but peak in the autumn “fungi flush”. Most often found on wood chip mulch: they are an imported species, first recorded in Britain in 1957, but now quite common. These distincitibve little toadstools, with pale stems and bright red or orange caps, probably originated in Australia.

Great white egret wading in a pool near the railway line at Doxey Marshes on the edge of Stafford city centre. Pictured Tuesday. Two other egret species were reported at the site that day, but weren’t there when I had my brief visit.