A comma butterfly, the only butterfly we’ve seen so far this year. It landed in the short grass right by the canal at Newbridge, and looked like it was getting ready to settle to warm up in the sun.
A dog walker came along the path. Neither man nor dog seemed aware of the butterfly, but it decided to move to a safer spot.
A front garden, completely covered in tarmac. There’s some patches of moss, but that can establish itself on just about any soil-free rock like surface. Every spring, there’s also several coltsfoot. They have roots in the soil underneath the tarmac, and have at some point forced their way through to the open air.
Two pairs of tufted ducks were swimming together on West Park lake. Every time I tried to take a picture, one or other of the pairs dived, leaving a ring-shaped wave where they had been. In several shots, the nearest I managed to the complete group was three birds, and the ripple where the fourth had submerged.
I gave up, and went for pictures of the individual birds instead. This time there were no problems of them disappearing underwater.
Lesser celandines are now well into their flowering season. But even on the warmer sunnier days, there’s only been a few signs of bees visiting them.
Shovellers – these are all drakes – snoozing in the lee of one of the islands on West Park lake.
Candle snuff fungus grows all year round on dead wood: tree stumps and fallen branches. It’s normally easiest to spot in early winter. That’s partly because undergrowth is at its minimum. But it also shows clearest then because it is whitened, I guess with spores.
Clearance work had removed some undergrowth, giving a better view of this stump with the fungus in its blackened form.