Category: David

Water mint, the stem and leaves emerging from shallow water of the pool in Compton Park.

Male broad-bodied chaser dragonfly at rest on the end of a leaf over Compton Park pool yesterday. The males of this species get a territory near water. They take a short spell perching on a look-out post, as here. Then they take off. They fly on patrol round their territory. They look for any intruding males, which will be seen off, and also for a female. Then they come back to land on their observation post, and the cycle runs again.

Pair of greylag geese with their three goslings on West Park boating lake last month. The young had only hatched recently, and still had their milk teeth. But one of them was noticably bigger than the other two. It must have hatched a day earlier.

japanese acer leaves have vivid autumn colours, reds and yellows. Some varieties have are red from when the foliage emerges in the spring, like this one I noticed in a front garden and pictured against the blue sky of a sunny morning.

The unmistakable flowers of red hot pokers, which actually do look a little like red hot pokers.

Female orange tip butterfly – only the males actually have the orange tip on their wings – which had just landed on a campion flower and begun to eat.