David

I don’t know if it is just me, but I was quite old before I realised that cobwebs weren’t actually the stereotypical webs of illustrated children’s books like Charlotte’s Web. Different sorts of spiders make webs of all kinds of shape. The “cob” of cobweb points to a 3D shape similar to the type og bread rolls called cobs in some parts of the country, to cobblestones, or to the knobs on the base of the beaks of male swans, cobs.

These two webs are small cobwebs on a low bush in West Park. I noticed them because they had caught a very heavy dew.

Some sort of bellflower flowering inside the fenced off area around the remains of Bridgnorth Castle.

A frog rests in a garden pond which has a surface sprinkled with pondweed. The frog was sheltering from me, and keeping cool on a day which was for once hot and sunny.

The weather warmed up just at the right time for buddleias to flower in profusion this year. Sadly, there have been virtually no butterflies around to take advantage of this abundance on the butterfly bushes. The long term decline because of the various ways the environment is being degraded has been heightened by this year’s mainly cold and wet weather. The same for bees.

So I decided to picture a buddleia flower from a different angle (literally). So here’s an end-on view.

This insect, and not any kind of bird, is the creature responsible for the gobs of froth, so-called cuckoo spit, which appears towards the tops of plants around this time of year.

Small dusty wave, a tiny but apparently quite common moth. This one had taken shelter on a day with bursts of heavy rainfall.