The week before Christmas

Two mushrooms/fungi I found in the park this week and I'm fairly confident about their identity. The one above is easy, its "Yellow Brain fungus", but the one on the left was a bit more tricky. I found one that looked like it in my reference books and then checked it on google. I'm pretty sure its "Velvet Shank" which apparently is an edible variety and particularly enjoyed by the Japanese in soups. I will have to become a lot more expert and confident about positive identification before I start to eat anything I find though.

Wednesday (21st December) was the shortest day with the sun rising at 8.15 and setting again at 15.55. However, we had cloud cover all day so didn't get a glimpse of the sun. I did see a predawn glow in the sky on Monday at about 8.10 but it didn't last long.

The best day of the week was Thursday with blues sky and just a bit of high cloud. There was a lot of air traffic that morning as shown by these vapour trails over Rowton Bank.