David

We were in Germany at the height of the poppy flowering season. All these pictures were taken in spots where wild flowers were given space to grow within a few minutes walk of the centres of Trier and Cologne.

The River Mosel in Trier has a long thin island more or less where it passes the historic centre of the town. At the downstream tip of the island, a heron was fishing, with a pair of swans yards away.

Just upstream from the island there’s the landing stage for tour boats. When we got that far, a boat for boat / cycle holidays had just discharged a mass of passengers to the extreme hazard of all of us walking on the riverside path.

A heron – perhaps the same bird which had been further downstream later – was on the bank right where this noisy peleton had disembarked. It seemed totally undisturbed.

Fertilized, and the seeds beginning to develop, cones on one of the larches in the avenue bordering what is now between the house and the Pitch and Putt Course at Bantock Park.

By the River Mosel in Trier (the Moselle further upstream before it leaves France), the first waterfowl we spotted was an Egyptian goose. Turns out they are quite common on the river, as well as on the pools of such parks as we visited.

Pictures taken at the very end of May, but somehow missed for posting until now: red flowers on one of the horse chestnuts in Bantock Park. Below, the tree they were on and its two companions.

Male blackbird looking for food in the grass near the Bantock Park pond, then on the fence round the pond.