Mallard and her three ducklings on the Compton Park pool. Several people had been walking their dogs, so the birds were keeping well to the furthest shore as they searched for food.
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Category: David
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Purple vetch flowers, Barley Field
Purple vetch flowering in the Smestow Valley LNR’s Barley Field.
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On the hunt, on the short grass
Moorhen prowling round on short grass, hunting for food.
Probably the same bird, and in the same area, as the one which was doing its best to eat up the grass seed previously.
There’s a great profusion of orchids at Baggeridge Country Park. These beautiful southern marsh orchids had recently started flowering, ten days ago.
I revisited the area yesterday, when they were even more abundant. The pictures will feature in a future post.
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Orchid flowers, Smestow Valley LNR
Orchids, possibly pyrmaid orchids, growing in the Smestow Valley Nature Reserve.
One of these beautiful flowers had disappeared, presumably picked (illegal as well as antisocial) the day after I took its picture.
UPDATE, 23rd June.
Ecorecord think the pictures are more likely to be of southern marsh orchids.
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Broad bodied chaser, male, at rest
Male broad bodied chaser resting on vegetation at the side of the Compton Park pool, keeping watch for intruders on its territory.
This is usually the first dragonfly species to appear each summer round here. Sexes can be told apart by their abdomen colour: pale blue in males, brownish in females.
