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David

Ice patterns: bubbles, West Park lake

Ice patterns: bubbles, West Park lake

Patterns: bubbles trapped under the ice of the then frozen West Park lake. The bubbles seemed only to be forming along one small stretch of the shoreline.

Ice patterns: bubbles, West Park lake

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David

Goldfinches and more on seed feeder

Goldfinches spending a long time eating seed, with briefer visits from green finches, bluetits and great tits.

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David

Frost crystals on a rose branch

Frost crystals on a rose branch

Frost crystals forming on a branch of a rose bush during the recent cold spell.

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David

Turner’s Field pond, then and now

Turner's Field pond, February 2019

The pond at the top end of Turner’s Field in the Smestow Valley Nature Reserve recently. The water level lowered, and all the willows around and in the pond felled, reduced to logs or wood chips. For comparison, this is what the pond looked like from roughly the same spot back in February 2014.

Turner's Field pond

Presumably related to the work to develop housing on the nearby site, formerly the location of the local authority plant nursery. Apart from the destruction of a fine set of mature trees, the pond has been reported in the past, IIRC, as a location where newts spawn.

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David

Shoveller males, West Park

Shoveller males, West Park

Male shovellers swimming on West Park lake. Part of a small flock of presumably wild birds which over-winter on the lake.

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David

Canada goose inspecting the ice

Canada goose inspecting the ice

Canada goose walks across the frozen boating lake at West Park, closely inspecting the ice it is about to step on.