Earth stars are fungi with such an exotic shape they look like they might have been dropped from outer space.
They have a hole in the top of their fruiting bodies for their spores to escape, powered by raindrops landing on it.
These were growing in the front of a garden, possibly associated with the pine trees. Although I walk past the garden at least once a week on visits to the supermarket, the earth stars had been around for some time before I noticed them.
Frosty, misty day view from High Town, Bridgnorth, looking upstream along the Severn.
These waxwings were in a group of eight which seemed to be hawking after insects from trees opposite Tettenhall Lower Green a few days ago.
They were probably a detatchment of the larger group spending some time in the Claregate area.
The remains of some of the summer’s vegetation on Barley Field, coated in frost and lighted by the sun on a December morning.
Gulls (along with ducks, geese and other water birds) gather by the island in the Severn at Bridgnorth.
This is a lesser black backed gull.
Here is an adult black-headed gull. The first picture is of a younger individual of the same species.
The island itself, with the cliff leading up to High Town in the background. When I took this picture, the other water birds all seemed to have headed off elsewhere.
The last remanants of a one-time fence next to the Birmingham Canal, frost-decorated during the cold spell in the middle of last month.
Pampas grass in a front garden, with a sprinkling of frost on a cold morning recently.
Picture taken heading up the Birmingham Canal towards the city centre during the cold spell last month.
The viaduct is carrying the railway to Shrewsbury and beyond. Through the viaduct arch is the Stafford Road, and, in the far distance, the other railway viaduct carrying the line north through Stafford.
Ok, the coral reef was formed millions of years ago, when the future Black Country was covered by a tropical sea. It’s now in the Wren’s Nest Reserve in Dudley.
This part of the reserve gives the best chance of finding small fossils in the scree which is weathered from the one-time reefs.
A pair of carrion crows standing on the same street light.
The nearer bird seemed to be grooming the other, beak probing feathers
Taken looking down on the birds from the walk by Bridgnorth castle park.
The guano on the light – and the corrosion it has caused – shows that it is a regular perch.
Hart’s tongue ferns like the soil on the Wren’s Nest Reserve in Dudley. This one’s leaves had a dusting of frost on a cold December morning.
Ash tree seeds with the wings used to disperse them.Presumably the reason they are called “keys” is the way they hang in a bunch.
Sadly, this is likely to become a rarer sight in the future.