Wolves Wild

The largest of the erratics in West Park got its own coating of snow recently.

A conifer in a front garden, flowering early last month.

A blackbird looks looks for crumbs left behind by the original recepients from the food people had put out for the West Park ducks and geese. Any food is welcome in hard weather.

Holly berries during the recent snowy period.

Witch hazel flowers covered in snow, with snow-covered ground behind. Yet another post on today’s theme: winter-flowering bushes and shrubs in West Park.

Buds of flowers (large, at ends of twigs) and leaves (smaller, on sides of twigs) on a West Park magnolia. Some patches of the lying snow are visible out of focus in the background.

Buds developing in the wintry weather on another West Park bush – this time a laurel.

Flower bud on one of West Park’s rhododendron bushes, the leaves covered in the recent snow.

Full-grown velvet shanks growing at the same time and on the same tree as the smaller ones featured in the previous post.

They are popular with gatherers of wild food, as one of the few edible mushrooms which grow at this time of year. Something else has already been nibbling these.

Warning: do not pick and eat any fungi unless you are sure they are an edible species. Velvet shanks can be confused with poisonous sulfur tufts.

Velvet shanks are one of the few mushrooms which grow even in the depths of winter. They are found in clusters on tree trunks – usually dead or dying trees

These are only half-grown, They were on a tree near the Ranger Station in the Smestow Valley Nature Reserve earlier this month.