Recovery

This beach, which has given us so much pleasure, not least because it's only a five-minute walk from our front door, has been wrecked by the recent weather.  All the sand has been removed. It will, once the wind goes round into the west, be returned, but in the meanwhile it's of little use to the waders who normally feed along it - there wasn't a single one in evidence this morning. Mixed up in the kelp thrown to the back of the beach, and amongst the plastic bottles and used tyres, are the bodies of seals and birds: today the cormorant count on the rocky promontory in the middle distance was down to six. Hopefully, more will return.

So, with a cold wind in the north, we spent most of our walk this morning in the forestry trying to find fungi most of which were either covered by, or camouflaged in, the the masses of fallen leaves blown down by the storms. This is, I think, a funnel, perhaps a clouded funnel, the cap on the left bearing the imprint of a leaf which had covered it.

The fungi shown were part of a 'colony' which stretched across the path.

It's so cheering that, despite the recent weather, our garden still has flowers in bloom, but it's also sad that the verbena, which has done so well this year, didn't have a single insect visitor this morning.

We eat lunch in the front room overlooking the garden, where there are several sparrow-proof peanut feeders much visited by coal and blue tits. Despite only having one functioning leg this blue tit managed a hearty meal before he was chased off by another blue tit.