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We found these delightful specimens of scarlet elf cap (Sarcoscypha austriaca) along the Tees Railway Path between Romaldkirk and Middleton-in-Teesdale today. This small goblet-shaped specimen was only a couple of centimetres tall and growing on a dead twig.
The larger specimens - about four centimetres in diameter - were a deeper shade of scarlet with a very smooth inner surface. It's typically a fungus of early spring and was growing under old hawthorns, where another scarlet apparition .....
... was enjoying the spring sunshine and singing with the volume turned all the way up to 11.
The most useful photographic advice I ever received was "if you want people to believe you're a competent photographer, never show anyone your failures". That's meant dumping well over 99% of my photographs, which is much easier and cheaper to do in these days of digital photography, when they disappear into the ether with the click of a button, at no cost.
But digital photography also delivers its own special kind of failures, thanks to the phenomenon of shutter-lag - that interval between pressing the shutter release and the sensor capturing the image. So I've got plenty of pictures like those below, which looked really good when I composed them and pressed the shutter....
This long-tailed tit was sitting perfectly on that twig in the foreground, looking at me over its shoulder as I pressed the shutter release ..... it must have taken off like a rocket.
In those last few milliseconds, this pigeon decided that it didn't want any publicity. Its feet came out well, though ...
.
... and this guillemot was overcome with shyness at the last moment too....
It's been a long winter. Earlier in the week there was spring in the air and this wood pigeon was courting a potential mate in our garden. Then, last night, it snowed again. And the bird food is under two inches of the snow on the bird table.
I can't help thinking that this wood pigeon looks depressed.
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