There are several species of inkcap mushrooms, all of which deliquesce. They do not drop their spores out of gills at the base of the cap. Instead, the cap disintegrates giving off the black mass of the spores.
This fly, whose species we haven’t been able to further identify, was totally absorbed in cleaning itself and ignored a very close approach.
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Comma butterfly
This individual is here opening its wings to display their upper surface and its furry-appearing body.
It is the same individual pictured with its wings closed, showing off its comma, here.
Wood-clipping mulch often serves as a matrix for impressive mushrooms, as here this specimen of pluteus semibulbosus.
Categories
Comma butterfly
There were a lot of these comma butterflies on the bushes by the Staffs and Worcs canal.
Walking along the canal from Broad Street basin in Wolverhampton city centre, the flight of locks down to the meeting with the Staffs and Worc canal at Aldersley Junction heads out towards the countryside.
Heading in the other direction, the Birmingham Main Line canal provides a green corridor right across the industrial and post-industrial desolation of the Black Country.
Much of this stretch of canal is lined by reed beds, here of bullrush or reedmace, which provide the shelter for the nests of coots and moorhens.