Wolves Wild

A misty winter morning, with the Dunstall Water Bridge and the bridges over both canals which join at Aldersley Junction.

The knobbly red folds around the beak of the muscovy’s beak are apparently called caruncles. This is the drake resident on the upper pool at Perton.

Another fungus which has survived the prolonged spell of overnight frosts. This wood blewit first appeared before the new year, now faded and battered.

Collared earth stars send up their exotic fruiting bodies in late autumn or early winter. Unless they’re molested, they then last through the colder months.

Most of the ones I spot seem to be half-hidden in the undergrowth below hedgerows, as these were by the canal at Wightwick.

The husks of the previous year’s rosebay willowherb always seem to hang around until their replacements grow in the spring. Here some were getting a coating of frost against a background of freezing mist.

Last year’s umbellifers, what remains of the woody material of the seed heads after all the seeds have been dispersed, encrusted in tiny ice crystals on a frosty morning.