Wolves Wild

Some type of umbellifer, still flowering well into autumn. The flowers themselves, just intruding into shot, were past their best when I spotted the plant, so I focussed on the one which had turned to as yet unripe seed.

Fly agaric mushroom. Its “warts all washed away by heavy rain, as a fly walks along the surface of the cap.

A magpie heads into the cover of the vegetation on Compton Park pond. The laggard of a group of three which had been up to no good on the footbridge, and which fled when I crossed.

Every year, ten or so shovellers gather on West Park lake for a cosy berth through the winter. The first of this year’s arrived in mid-October. This male, just coming out of eclipse plumage, was busy with the shoveller habit of swimming round in a tight circle with its beak just below the surface of the water, shovelling for food.

Glistening inkcaps can appear at any but the coldest times of year, but peak during the autumn “fungi flush” season. These were under trees, in Bantock Park and by the Railway Walk at Finchfield.

Dead man’s fingers are quite a common fungus. They grow on dead wood, here in Himley Plantation.