Category: David

A touch of winter colour: flowers on a withhazel bush in the Quarry at Shrewsbury late last month.

Two male blackbirds searching for food in the soil below short wet grass in different parts of the Quarry in Shrewsbury. Birds living in popular parks are used to human disturbance, and may be less prone to take flight when a camera is pointed at them.

Deceiver mushrooms natural habitat is woodland, but they are also common in more urban settings, often, as here, brought in on wood chipping mulch. These attracted my attention with their light sprinkling of frost.

The stretch of the River Severn by the centre of Shrewsbury seems popular with goosanders spending the daylight hours catching fish. On a recent visit, a mile or so walking along the river bank from just upstream of the Welsh Bridge to just downstream of the English Bridge gave sightings of over a dozen birds.

A tall tree in Stratford on Avon, bare of leaves in winter showing a multiplicity of of mistletoes – at least a dozen bunches.

Brightly-coloured male Carolina duck on the River Severn at Shrewsbury. This lone Carolina was in the midst of a group of twenty or so mallards, all of them on the look out for offerings of bread from anyone walking in the Quarry on a winter morning.