View taken only a few yards from the picture in the previous post, looking out of the edge of Himley Plantation to an open field with an oak tree in the middle. Frost remained on the grass in the shadow of the wood, but not on the grass in direct sunlight.
Sunlight streaming through the trees of Himley Plantation. There was a slight mist as the sun burned away the frost.
Another visit to Bridgnorth’s Castle Grounds, one day later. Still only one fruiting body of the magpie inkcap fungus. In twenty four hours more of the remains of the veil have been shed showing the black of the cap beneath.
Magpie inkcap fungus growing on wood chip fungus under a tree in Bridgnorth’s Castle Grounds. There have been magpie inkcaps growing in this area in late autumn for several years now. But when I checked in mid-November this year this fruiting body was standing all alone. The veil had only just begun to break up on the cap revealing the black below, so the mushroom had probably only emerged the previous night.
Two herons on opposite sides of West Park’s boating lake island, on a yopung bird, the other mature. When I noticed them one recent lunchtime, each was preening, and was standing hunched so their heads were hidden or hard to make out.
Views of the Malvern Hills’ highest peak, Worcestershire Beacon, with the Shire Ditch leading up the slope. The Ditch is an impressive historic earthwork, which runs for several miles just below the crest of the Malverns. Its original purpose is lost in the mists of time: it might have been created in the bronze age. But it was surely a territorial marker. It still forms a stretch of the boundary between Worcestershire and Herefordshire.