David

A small toad crossing the main footpath through Baggeridge Country Park, heading from the woodland towards Spring Pool.

Several years earlier, I’d seen a pair of toads at almost in the same spot and heading in the same direction. The male had been clasped to the female, mating.

I’ve seen very few coltsfoots (coltsfeet?) this year. This one was growing by the wooden fence beside one of the tracks at Baggeridge Country Park.

Little grebe in breeding plumage by the reed bed on Bag Pool, Baggeridge Country Park. The bird kept its back to me for some time, then dived and disappeared. Presumably it surfaced in the cover of the reeds.

Yew flowers: these are male flowers, and the tree where they were growing will not have any berries come autumn.

Sparrowhawk on the roof of the Seven Stars pub, Gospel Oak Road, Sedgley, one morning recently. Small, so probably a male.

Baggeridge Country Park: the lower slopes of Toposcope Hill are studded with these ant hills.