Category: David

Sow thistle flower. The plant was growing on a grassy bank, making it easy to show the flower from below even taking the picture at eye level.

Parasol mushroom with a very large ring half way up its stem. It was growing in the same spot in Himley Plantation wood where another group of the same species had been the previous week.

Family of swans: two adults and five now well grown cygnets, resting on the slipway of Oxley Marine boatyard near Autherley Junction. Ian Phillips of the Smestow Birders suggests these might be the cygnets which hatched in West Park earlier this year, and later disappeared.

Another swan family with the same number of cygnets are further along the canal, near Newbridge.

Large horse’s hoof fungi on a big tree stump in Himley churchyard. The same stump was also supporting a fine crop of another fungus: giant polypore.

Each of the brackets of the horse’s hoof fungus was over eighteen inches across.

Himalayan balsam, an intrusive plant which now grows in great abundance, especially beside streams and canals. The delicate-looking pink or white flowers are attractive to bees and other pollinating insects.

Large clumps of giant polypore fungus around a tree stump at the edge of Himley churchyard. The tree was also infested with the horse’s hoof fungus. The fungi between them were probably the reason the tree needed felling.