As ever, the local robins are refusing to cooperate in posing for a Christmassy picture standing on a holly bush. But this one was singing defiantly on the branch of a bramble growing by the path across the Smestow Valley Nature Reserve’s Sandfields.
Stag’s horn fungus, also known as candle snuff fungus. Tiny fruiting bodies growing on dead, sometimes underground, wood. They grow all year round, but are much more visible in the autumn and winter when less likely to be hidden by vegetation.
Ice pellets were scattered on the ground on the first morning of this month after falling overnight. here some are seen on the ice of the frozen poool in Compton Park, with the burgeoning pondweed below providing a green background.
Two herons on West Park’s boating lake island, standing just far enough apart that they could ignore each other’s presence. Both balancing on one leg as they twisted their necks to take care of their feathers.
A fallen oak leaf covered in frost and some of the ice pellets which were thinly scattered on the first morning this month after falling overnight.
Flying over the boating lake at West Park, a few of the resident flock of black-headed gulls.