Wolves Wild

Two of the handful of tufted ducks which stay resident on West Park lake over the summer – the numbers usually swell, perhaps to around twenty or thirty, over the winter.

Somewhat closer views of the recent cormorants in West Park. Cormorants aren’t regular fixtures on the lake. They tend to show up perhaps two or three times a decade, rest and have a good feed for a few days or a few weeks, then move on. This group is bigger than usual, and also broke the regular pattern by arriving as summer is giving way to autumn.

The two herons which recently ended up in residence on the West Park lake. They’ve based themselves one to each island on the lake. So one of them has adopted a perch close to those of the cormorants, while the other has opted for a relatively quieter spot, sharing only with a gull.

Cormorants dive for fish, but they don’t have water-repellent feathers unlike some diving birds. After a plunge, they need to hold out their wings to let them dry.

The young cormorant was standing still, wings stretched for a while. The Canada goose behind it was having a short sharp shake. Despite appearances, one bird was not copying the stance of the other.

Towards the end of the patch of late August rainstorms, visitors to West Park lake possibly taking refuge from the weather. When we saw them there were two herons, though only one features in this series of pictures. The five (possibly six) cormorants may have been a family group: there were two adults and the rest were juveniles.

The Severn at Bewdley around sunset, looking upstream. As it goes past the town, the river is running more or less north north west to south south east. On the right (west) bank the land rises fairly steeply, so the sun is hidden well before sunset.

Upstream from the bridge, the riverside road quickly gives way to a footpath. Not far beyond the town, there’s an extensive woodland in the Wyre Forest.