Wolves Wild

Heavy rain must have splashed mud onto these snowdrops, growing in the woods behind Northycote Farm Country Park.

The recent wet weather had left it very muddy under foot at Northycote Farm Country Park last week. Most of the farm animals seemed happy with the conditions, especially the pigs.

Turkeytail is one of the commonest of the bracket fungi. It grows on dead wood, such as this East Park tree stump.

The green colour here is algae growing on the fungus – the upper surface of turkeytail fungi have bands of different colours, which sometimes include green.

The bandstand at East Park has been temporarily removed for some much-needed TLC. While it is gone, the base is left looking forlorn.

Scarlet elf cups are very distinctive fungi, shaped like small cups with a bright red interior and a pale white or yellowish exterior.

They grow on dead wood from many species of deciduous trees.

Supposedly fairly common in winter and early spring, but often hidden in the vegetable litter under trees, or even underground.

These were growing on a pile of fallen branches a short distance from the Ranger Station in the Smestow Valley LNR.

View looking up the towpath towards Wightwick Lock last month.

Velvet shanks are one of the most colourful of the common fungi which grow even in the depths of winter.

They are found on tree trunks: often, as here, on dead or dying trees.

The tree these supporting these was at the end of the platform of the old Tettenhall railway station – now the Smestow Valley Nature Reserve Ranger Station.

Erratic overlooking the Dell at East Park, showing more clearly now the roses have been pruned.

Heathers seem to be a popular plant in the gardens I’m passing at the moment.

Every variation in colour from white to deep purple.

Sometimes both, planted close together.

Hawthorn bush at the edgeof the canal, with a snow-covered Dell Field behind.

Black-headed gull looking like it is standing on water. It’s on a section of the frozen West Park lake where water has spread over the ice.

Young and mature bird at the edge of the ice covering.

Group of five …

… and the largest group also seem to gather where the ice meets the open water.

Water dripping from an overflow onto a bay bush during January’s cold spell produced these icicles, some hanging diagonally.