Category: David

Purple vetch flowering in the Smestow Valley LNR’s Barley Field.

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.

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.

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.

Figwort growing by the edge of the canal between Compton and Wightwick, its flowers just beginning to open a few days ago