Category: David

Compton Lock is at the southern end of the summit level of the Staffs and Worcs Canal. It is reputedly the first pound lock to be built in the burst of canal building which transformed inland transport as part of the original Industrial Revolution.

The lock gates need replacing from time to time, but the current set have been in place long enough for a healthy growth of liverworts, ferns and other plants by the downstream junction of the two lower gates, which are steadily watered whenever the lock is full.

A holly blue butterfly resting, its wings folded, on grounds strewn with chunks of wood chip mulch.

A small flock of some half dozen or so starlings feeding on the ground on a footpath.

Three families of greylag geese with goslings in West Park this year. The goslings in the different families at different ages, but when they come ashore the adults often bring them together so they can share lookout duty.

When I first spotted them, the goslings were feeding among daisies in one of the patches of short grass near the lake. For reasons which weren’t clear to me, the adults decided to herd them nearer to the lake, and incidentally a little closer to where I was standing. I thought they were heading for the safety of the water. Instead, they stopped part way across the path. The goslings got themselves settled, and started hunting the cracks in the path for morsels to eat.

A red mason bee (not looking noticably red from this angle) busily eating at the blue flower of an alkanet.

Female orange tip butterflies can be recognised by the wings which don’t have an orange tip. Here’s one feeding on the flower or a jack by the hedge. Some weeks later, evidence appeared that she may also have been laying eggs at the same time.