David

Crab apples from a tree on the fringe of Barley Field, with just a hint of reddening in their mainly yellow skins.

This year has been a very poor one for many fruits and berries.

A few days ago, I went to the edge of the Barley Field in the Smestow Valley Nature Reserve. There’s a patch of blackthorn bushes there.

At this time of year they are usually covered in ripening sloes. This was the only one I could spot.

A pine cone and a sycamore leaf which had taken on autumn colours had fallen close together onto grass.

Unripe (yellowish) and riper berries on a St John’s wort bush glisten after yet another bout of rain.

A dandelion, moss and other plants force their way up through the mortar of a paved path. The plants look like they are the green of spring, but the picture was only taken a few days ago.

Crows often menace birds of prey larger than themselves to try to drive them out of a territory whivh both birds claim.

This carrion crow and buzzard both live in or near the Smestow Valley Nature Reserve, and were re-enacting a scene I regularly see wheh I am walking across the Barley Field section of the reserve. Most of the pictures I take show silhouettes or blurs, but this time both birds came out clearly, even showing the pattern on the underside of the buzzard’s wings.

The buzzard is one of a pair which often fly together. This was the larger one: the female.

Black-headed gulls and lesser black backed gulls settled on the same ground on a playing field.

The plant with the barbed seed head which inspired the invention of Velcro™.

At the end of last month, these holly berries were just beginning to turn from their original green colour.

Looking past the largest of the erratics in West Park and over the floral beds to the pre-dawn sky in late September.

Here the big rock can just about be made out in the lower right of the picture.