David

This is a tiny fungus, less than a centimeter high. To the naked eye, it can indeed look like the wick of a partially used candle, with ash on the end.

Heron intently staring at the water after prey on Fen’s Pool on the Pensnett nature reserve.

This year, most of the sloes which are within easy reach for picking (and picturing) seem to have disappeared very early, leaving only those which are awkwardly higher or lower on the bush. These were an exception. They were by a path on the Fen’s Pool LNR (the eponymous pool is in the background of the upper picture)

Widely cultivated – for some years they have even been appearing on British supermarket shelves. This specimen was growing wild on a tree stump in the Fen’s Pool LNR, Dudley.

The bright yellow autumn leaves of one of the gingkoes at the Chapel Ash end of Compton Road, caught against a blue sky before the winds started to denude the tree.

This fungus was growing on a tree near to Meccano Bridge in the Smestow Valley LNR.

This squirrel seemed to by trying to stuff as much food in its mouth as it possibly could.

I wasn’t able to spot what it was eating. For once, it must have been something it had found itself. There was no-one around who could have fed it.

A fairly common mushroom. The cap is depressed towards the centre, so it does indeed resemble a funnel. I didn’t get a picture of that this time, but the funnel effect can be seen in a previous post
of a related species.

The same species of mushroom as the previous post. These were growing in the churchyard at Berkswell. They, too, have lost much of their colour to rain, but seem to have escaped a nibbling.

CORRECTION: identified by Lukas Large as possibly pepper roundhead

A common but easily overlooked mushroom. The verdigris agaric starts off very definitely coloured like the copper tarnish. But they are more frequently to be seen with the pale tints of these specimens – the colour is easily washed off by rain.

These, and a handful of other species of mushrooms, were growing in an easily missed vegetation patch where the ring road underpass emerges heading for the Molineux Stadium. They may have been associated with the wood chipping mulch there.