One of the berries at the top of the image is just beginning to ripen, adding a dash of colour to the image.
Artichoke flowering
An artichoke flower, looking very like a thistle.
Himalayan balsam flowers
A tall introduced plant which prefers to grow in damp places, Himalayan balsam is often found growing in clumps near the canals locally.
Blushing rosette fungus
A fungus which grows in a clump from buried wood. “Blushing” because sometimes has a pinkish colour.
The first two pictures are of the same clump from different directions. The other image is of an older clump.
Please feed me
Many of the squirrels in West Park are now so used to being fed that they solicit food. This one has learnt that sitting up and begging can be an effective technique.
After a squirrel snack
Discarded hazelnut shells rest on the GWR blue bricks opposite the one-time Tettenhall railway station, now the Smestow Valley Reserve Ranger Station.
Grey squirrels eat the hazelnuts while they are still green. In the long term this threatens that hazels might die out in the wild in Britain.
Large cinnabar moth caterpillar on a ragwort plant
This is probably the largest of the caterpillars which featured in last week’s post: this picture was taken 36 hours later than those.
Drops of water sticking to some of the creature’s hairs are the remnants of overnight rain.
Fairiesbonnets in a troop
Fairiesbonnets are tiny inkcap mushrooms – less than a centimeter high. They grow in troops.
These two troops give some idea of the range of colour. The pictures were taken at the same time; the troops were only a couple of feet away from each other, just inside West Park’s South Gate.
This picture shows all but a few stragglers of the patch with the paler coloured variant (middle photo).
Blushing rosette
Blushing rosette, or Abortiporus biennis to give their official name, is very strange even for a fungus.
They grow on buried wood, and are very variable in form and especially in colour. This can vary from near-white, through yellow and red (hence “blushing”), to browns like this one.
I saw this one (or is it these?) growing on one of the patches of short grass just by an entrance to West Park.
Rook on Exeter cathedral lawn
This rook was searching among the short grass in front of Exeter cathedral for anything to eat.
It didn’t seem to be at all worried by people who were walking just a few yards away.
