Japanese acers exhibit an amazing range of leaf colours. That’s most marked in autumn, as the leaves change colour in preparation for falling. But the trees also have many variations in the newly-emerging foliage of spring. While many have leaves in different shades of green, this one, growing in a front garden, has leaves which from the off are a rich red.
Two rats near the bridge at West Park. I wasn’t sure whether their interaction was amorous or aggressive. Either way, it meant they were well away from cover for some time.
May is one of the other names for hawthorns. These flowers were actually beginning to open quite early in April. One of the flowers was being investigated by a small insect, probably a fly of some kind.
A forget-me-not plant growing, and flowering, at the meeting point of a pavement and a garden wall. Perhaps an escapee from one of the nearby gardens.
One of the rare sunny mornings earlier this month. A tawny mining bee taking a pause from its efforts to rest on a leaf and let the sun warm it up.
The turtle’s back, sunning itself on its log on West Park lake. It’s a map turtle, or perhaps a terrapin. Native to the swamps of Florida. Quite common as a pet, and evidently all too often they’re dumped in pools when they get too inconvenient.
We first noticed it in the long spring and summer of 2020, when it seemed to be out on its log every sunny morning. As the weather got cooler, it disappeared: hibernating in the deep mud of the lake until the next spring.
In recent years, its appearance has been less predictable. Last year, it was showing for some days in April, but then we never saw it again. Had something happened to it? It would seem not. Here it was, earlier this week, looking the same as ever.
It must have found some new spot to come out of the water and warm itself in the sun, perhaps out of sight of the people round the lake. If so, it may only show itself occasionally again this year. We went back to the park a couple of days after these pictures were taekn. The time was about the same. The weather, I thought, was about the same.
But that time, nothing on the log.