Category: David

Heron looking alert but unfazed at how close I was. Standing in a willow tree, no foliage back in January 2014.

Crinkly lichen growing on the trunk of a tree in Himley Plantation.

Common darter dragonfly at rest on the wooden railing of the pool at Compton Park. Another brief presence which seems to be over. The first summer after the pool had been made, it was alive with damselflies and dragonflies, several species of each, present in some numbers. Every year since, the vegetation has taken over more and more of the open water, and insect abundance has gone down.

This year there have been just a few damselflies, almost all common blues. Dragonflies have been few and far between for a couple of years now. If there have been any at all this year, I’ve missed them. Here is one from 2016.

UPDATE: weeks after I scheduled this to appear, I finally saw two male common darters in the area in early September. Pictures coming in October.

Apples, growing in the orchards of properties with Shakespearean associations, Mary Arden’s Farm, Wilmcote and Anne Hathaway’s Cottage, Shottery.

Birch polypore, a common bracket fungus on birch trees, seen from above growing on a falling trunk, and from below on a still upright tree nearby.

Deep cutting in the sandstone rock, on the South Staffordshire Railway Walk between Wombourne and Himley Plantation.