Young heron stalking the reed bed directly below the Wildside Centre. Every few seconds it was dipping the tip of its beak into the canan, and seemed to be catching a small fish almost every time so far as I could see from the far bank.
Pondweed under thin ice, Compton Park Pool
Compton Park Pool on a sunny, frosty morning. The surface of the water covered by a thin sheet of ice, clear enough to show the pondweed growing below.
Single waxcap species mushroom, Upper Green, Tettenhall
Single mushroom of some waxcap species growing on Upper Green, Tettenhall. Just thje slightest trace still remaining of the vivid colours it will have had when it first emerged, not enough to identify it.
Some years ago, there were some parrot waxcaps at precisely the same spot. If this one is the same, the colour must have been lost not only from the cap, but also the stem.
Smestow, crossing water bridge
Smestow, crossing the canal below, coming over Dunstall Water Bridge. The fencing visible on the other side of the bridge is an effective barrier to anyone wanting to slip into the racecourse by an unofficial entrance.
Dunnock exploring, West Park
Dunnock exploring leaf litter for invertebrates to eat, near the lake in West Park.
Jelly fungus, moss, lichen
Growing on the same dead bough: a jelly fungus, possibly witch’s butter, a feathery carpet of moss, a non-flowering plant, and just a little pale green foliose (leaf-like) lichen. All lichens are composites of two different creatures: one a fungus, the other a photosynthesiser – either an alga or a cyanobacterium.