David

Frog resting on a piece of wood. Some pondweed leaves are decorating one flank of the frog, sticking when it emerged from water.

A grasshopper flew out of a patch of rough vegetation and landed on the road near me.

Grasshoppers are very wary of anyone getting near them, so even with my lens of quite a high telephoto setting these record shots were the best I could manage.

Cinnabar moth caterpillars, busy chomping their way through all the foliage of the ragwort they’re on. The yellow and black stripes are a warning to any potential predators that they are poisonous: the poison absorbed from the ragwort they’ve eaten. If that wasn’t enough, they are covered in spiky looking hairs to give an unpleasant mouth feel.

There’s been a badger sett in West Park for as long as I can remember. As far as I know, it’s been occupied all that time, and still is. Now, an excavation has begun which seems to be making the beginnings of a new sett, in just about the opposite side of the park to the established one.

I can’t think of any other explanation for this hole. But if it is a possible new sett, there isn’t much progress being made. I’ve been back around it a coupl;e of times since I took this picture, and no fresh earth has been thrown up.

More summer mushrooms. These lurid boletes were growing on the traffic island outside the Paget Road site of Wolverhampton College. They are quite cummon urban summer mushrooms, on lawns or, as here, on wood chip mulch. I’m not sure how they got their name, To me, they are, if anything, rather more subdued in colour than some other bolete species.

The Dutch Garden at the back of Bantock House is pleasant at pretty much any time of year. Here is a general view over it a couple of weeks ago.

A few summer mushrooms are now starting to appear. These are russulas, probably charcoal burners. They wer under trees on a quiet side road, associated with birch or possibly a hornbeam.

Towards the end of last month, finally a few days with clear blue skies. In West Park, groups of people settled themselves on the grass to catch some sun. Several of the park’s resident population of pigeons had the same idea.

Another cultivated escapee, an atlas poppy growing from the gap between the pavement and a garden wall.

Moorhen chick, now grown to full size or thereabouts, and big enough to be allowed out without close parental supervision. strolling around near the West Park lake.