Today’s guest picture shows a huge Santa looming over a stall at a German Christmas market in Birmingham (though how German a stall selling crêpes is you might wonder). These markets have sprung up everywhere in recent years. This one was visited by my brother.
After several very gloomy, wet and windy days, the weather gods finally relented and sent us a limited issue of brighter weather. It didn’t last long and was gone by the early afternoon but it was very welcome while it was here.
Mrs Tootlepedal was singing in a carol service with the church choir so I rang up Sandy and arranged a walk with him while she was in warbling mode.
While I waited for him to arrive, I rejoiced in the fact that I could actually see the birds on the feeder.
The chaffinches were very busy today after yesterday’s enforced absence and I had to fill the feeder twice. The light was even good enough for my lens to catch a chaffinch perched in the plum tree.
When Sandy arrived, we drove to the Kilngreen and kept an eye out for the resident heron…
…who was looking unusually cheery.
Then we strolled round the Castleholm and the pheasant hatchery keeping an eye out for fungus. Our fungus spotting skills have definitely improved and I will have to buy a fungus book and try to learn what they are.
The first batch of three were all on the same tree and changed colour as we went round the trunk.
The second batch were all on fallen trunks or branches.
The next two were more vertical, one covering the end of a dead tree trunk…
…and the other a living tree. It may well be a lichen as it was clinging very flat to the tree trunk but it look fungus like. I’ll have to get that book.
We stopped half way round the walk to look at the Esk which was full enough after the rain but not in flood.
Note to Zyriacus: I have tried to make a wood pattern for this frame but it will need more practice.
Beside the river was a stark reminder of the power of the recent heavy winds.
The most incongruous fungus we spotted was a tiny one in a deserted bird box.
There was a lot of interesting moss to be seen as we went along.
The trees are well covered in moss and lichen but this one stood out as it looked as though it had been whitewashed.
We wandered back to the Kilngreen along the new path, enjoying the kindly weather and the company and we agreed that it would have been a pleasant outing even if we had left our cameras behind.
At the Kilngreen we parted, as Sandy had to go to collect his own car. He went off and I dawdled around watching ducks and gulls for a while.
The gulls were flying low over the Ewes water.
The berries in Clinthead gardens beside the river are spectacular.
When I got home, Mrs Tootlepedal had returned from church. She has had a busy social and vocal week with two choir practices, two choir concerts and two meals out so she was having a well earned rest. Nevertheless, the forecast of impending wind and rain was enough to get her out of her chair and onto her bike while the going was still good and we cycled the nine miles up to the new bridge and back. We got back in the nick of time, pushed by an ever strengthening wind, as it started to rain before we had even closed the garage door on the bikes.
The new bridge is settling in and we will watch with interest to see how long it takes for the ground around it to return to vegetation.
The weather returned to normal and I spent a happy hour or two throwing away the vast majority of the pictures I had taken and playing with making frames for some of those that I kept. This should keep me occupied on wet days for many months to come as the possibilities are endless. Do you want your bevel to be soft or hard chisel, does the frame need a satin finish, should the whole thing have a soft glow?….and so on ad infinitum….and that is before you even start considering the millions of possibles shades of colour that are available. If I had a brain, it would have fried.
My joints are being unhelpful at the moment and I am going to go easy on the exercise until they return to normal so I probably won’t mind that fact that we are promised two more days of heavy winds.
The flying bird of the day is one of those Kilngreen gulls. This one lifted up a few feet from the water as it went past me.
Tootlepedal's Blog 
Whatever the reason for the “sticky” droplets, it makes for a striking photo. The beading on the green is beautiful – well captured!
Thank you.
Excellent photos Tom! 🙂
You are very kind.
With a little sun, your photos shine again!
It was a welcome sight. The townsfolk were going about with a jaunty step.
I really enjoy your bird photos, Annie
As you can imagine, I like taking them.
I like that shot of the great blue heron and the duck with water droplets is amazing. I think your first examples of fungi are types of tinder or horse hoof polypores and the very flat ones that you thought might be lichens I think is a crust fungus called wet rot fungus (Coniophora puteana). I like the mushrooms in the nesting box-proof that they will grow just about anywhere. There is a good website of Scottish fungi here:https://sites.google.com/site/scottishfungi/
The moss looks like an example of ribbed bog moss (Aulacomnium palustre.) The growths at the ends of the stems that look like tiny blackberries are male sperm producing organs. Female egg producing organs will appear on another plant very close by. They like wet, swampy places.
You are as always a mine of information. I will bookmark the fungus link. I shall have to look out for the female ribbed bog moss when I next go past.
Beautiful shots all. Especially like the gull flight shots, feeder birds and all the beautiful fungi. I now have to look up the gull species.
A black headed gull.
Thanks. I have to review them all again soon…
Nice shot of the Esk with the trees on the opposite shore and sun lit hills behind!
The gap in the trees was made when they put the town’s water supply across the river there.
Am very sorry about your joints, most annoying. However your pain, our gain. Wonderful pictures including the perching chaffinch and a wealth of fungi and with New Hampshire Gardener supplying comments, who needs a book?
I particularly liked the framed picture of the Esk. Hope joints recover soon.
Some interesting fungi there and that moss is very unusual. I think we have your gloom here today. Hardly a photo to be taken.
It has been very black here. The chance to see a strange moss was a treat.
The fungus thrives in any weather, it seems!
Absolutely.
Some beautiful fungus and lichen. I must not forget to post mine.
I await them with eager anticipation. Do not forget.