David

Flag iris just as the first flowers were beginning to open, right by the footbridge across Compton Park pool

Nature isn’t always nice. Lesser black backed gull in the shallow margin of the Severn at Bridgnorth with what looked like a newly-hatched chick of some kind, now deceased and about to be eaten.

Assortment of ladybird pictures, including one of a pair mating.

The five ducklings, this years first set on the Compton to Wughtwick section of the canal, which had lost both parents at less than a week old. Here they were about six or seven weeks, still together, and still looking well, their infant down now pretty much replaced by ordinary feathers.

Large red damselfly, resting on a garden table. It was undisturbed when I came near enough to get these close-up shots.

The West Park waterfowl population is dominated by Canada geese, which outnumber the combined presence of greylags, swans and the different species of ducks. Greylags swans and coots produce at least one set of young each year. Mallards likewise in most years. I’ve been on the look out fairly regularly for the past decade, and less systematically for a long time before that. During that time, I don’t remember seeing a single Canada goose gosling. Here a pair of adults which, this year, have produced ten – there’s also a second, smaller, clutch to be featured in a future post.