A wagtail feeding on the bank of the West Park lake. It was walking along the water line; sometimes above the water, sometimes getting its feet wet. I wasn’t sure, but thought that when it bobbed its head down to nab another victim, it was getting them from the water, where it shallowed meeting the shore.
My first attempt at picturing spore prints of a mushroom, one of the St George’s mushrooms in the previous post, which someone had kicked over. The cheap microscope (“for kids”) I used has made for massive chromatic aberration — The spores are actually cream coloured.
According to folklore (or quite possibly fakelore) St George’s mushrooms are meant to appear on the saint’s day. Normally, it’s more likely to be a few days later, which was indeed when I saw these. They were on the steep bank of the cutting the Railway Walk passes through at Castlecroft.
West Park lake on the same morning. On the other side of the bridge, two more families of greylag geese are swimming together. The pair with the most goslings had also been the ones whose young hatched first, and were by now visibly growing. I think the other family were also a few days older than the birds in yesterday’s post. Perhaps that’s why these parents seem a little more relaxed that the groups are not quite so lined up in one straight line as they swam.
More lords and ladies growing by the Railway Walk at Castlecroft. The flowers and the surrounding spathes had been eaten, almost certainly by badgers: there was a lot of evidence of badger activity right next to them.
As things were a month ago on West Park lake. One of the greylag goose pairs sheparding their then recently hatched goslings swimming from the direction of one of the islands in the lake to one of the less frequented patches of short grass on the mainland, so the little ones could graze.
The mother goose led the way, then the three goslings all in a line, with the gander as tail end charlie.
When they got to the far side, two of the three goslings were struggling to get up the steep stone wall of the bank.