David

Bullrushes growing at the edge of one of the pools in the nature reserve at the back of the i54, last year’s seed backklit by a winter sun, still near the horizon at mid-morning.

Male blackbird in bushes by a footpath, looking round to check whether I was any threat.

The beak is dirty where the bird has been probing the soil for food.

Contrasting views from a footpath across Sedgley Beacon. Urban sights of Wolverhampton city centre and the housing estates, factories and warehouses of the Black Country. Facing more to the west, rural south Staffordshire and Shropshire, and the ghostly bulk of the Wrekin on the horizon.

One of a small flock of long-tailed tits which were moving round rapidly in in an alder tree by the West Park boating lake.

The year’s first dandelion, or at least the first one I noticed. Growing on the Doxey Marsh Nature Reserve.

Small group of Sedgely Beacon carrion crows which landed, one to a tree, on the slender tree tops of a small birch plantation.