David

Red (or perhaps more accurately pink) dead nettle flowering, for comparison with the white dead nettle which featured the day before yesterday.

Like them, this one was growing by the verge of one of the quiet lanes between Wolverhampton and Bridgnorth.

Orange tip butterflies are one of the commoner hedgerow butterflies around April / May, when their preferred food plant, jack by the hedge, is heading for the flowering season.

Only the males have the distinctive orange tip to the wing.

Umbellifer on the edge of Church Pool at Badger when its floret was just about to open.

Swan sailing on the West Park lake. Its wings are raised, and the neck held back against the body: a threat posture.

Dead nettles are plants with a general shape and leaves which look rather similar to nettles. But they aren’t related, and don’t sting – that’s why they’re “dead”.

Their flowers always come in a contrasting colour to the rest of the plant, unlike true nettles. Some are red, some, like these, white.

Japanese acer and magnolia in front of Bantock House.

The red leaves of the acer contrast with the colours of the other tree: the green leaves and the white petals, on high as well as carpeting the ground.