Wolves Wild

Photomicrographs of Hydrilla verticillata at different magnifications. The subject is a plant, native in a wide zone of Eurasia from Poland to India, but now introduced and an intrusive waterweed in much of the rest of the world.

Taken using a National Geographic branded microscope with its digimicroscoping* attachment. The microscope is designed for use by children, and occasionally appears in the special offers aisle at ALDI. Today’s pictures feature one of the prepared slides which is included in the purchase.

* My coinage, on the model of digiscoping, where birders put their mobile’s phones up to the eyepiece of their telescope to picture birds.

A fungus growing on the inner surface of a red pepper which had been left exposed for some days. I’m guessing that the liquid-seeming ends of the strands hold the spores.

Quite impressively big, but not actually a giant, a house spider in a house.

During pauses in the persistent rain, honey bees out gathering pollen. They were diving deep into some camellia flowers to get their pollen baskets packed even fuller.

One of nature’s standard colour-coded warnings: black and yellow stripes equals danger. This scarlet tiger moth doesn’t sting. The coarse bristles probably already make it unpleasant to eat. Anything which tries to eat it anyway would get bigger problems. The caterpillar is poisonous.

In close-up view, the tiny seeds in the inside of a red pepper remind me of nothing so much as rows of standing stones.

I was trying to get a picture of the willow catkins in the foreground, using a mobile phone camera. Instead it’s a portrait of an intricate maze, with the tangle of branches from the other trees behind.

Possibly a layered cup fungus (Peziza varia, also sometimes called cellar cup fungus) growing in a leaky shed.

A maple, just as the leaves were starting to open. The tree was growing by the road and the canal at Newbridge. As I stood on the bridge, the branch was at eye level.

The Two Greens pub in Tettenhall (formerly the Rock) has good views looking towards Wolverhampton. Here, through a gap in the trees, Compton Park with the Wolves indoor training ground, before the land rises behind.

It’s been a cold and damp spring so far, not exactly insect-friendly conditions. Here’s one ladybird which braved the weather, taking a rest on a spiky thistle.

Bluebells growing in a front garden, with the first signs of the flowers beginning to develop, and just peeping through the leaves. They did get bluer later.