Wolves Wild

There are sometimes water voles active along the canal, but they always duck away before I get any chance of a picture.

The photos here were taken some years ago. I was on a summer cycle tour, and had landed up in Salisbury. Behind the cathedral there are extensive meadows with several paths and cycle routes.

At one point, a sturdy fence and a deep ditch separated a path from the meadow. A family of voles were swimming in the ditch and running about on the far bank in broad daylight. They seemed to know that they were safe from disturbance, and may have been youngsters at play with the parents on guard.

I was travelling light to keep the bike’s load down, so I didn’t really have a long enough lens. But these are still the only clear pictures I have ever got of voles.

Pair of mallard drakes passing under the canal footbridge at Newbridge, leaving a wave behind them in their wake.

Lesser celandines in the same patch. One had a flower just opening at the start of the month. The other had almost finished flowering, with the petals off and the seeds already beginning to develop.

Two little grebes on adjacent stretches of the canal between the Wildside Centre and the Water Bridge.

One is a mature bird, the one still in summery plumage. The other is possibly a juvenile.

This latter bird seems to be more successful in its fishing, catching something every time it dives. It is also fiercely protective of its territory when the older bird encroaches.

Dead man’s fingers, a fungus which grows on dead wood, here a moss-covered tree stump in Hawthorn Wood.

Male blackbird hunting for food on a patch of ground with short grass by the canal towpath at Penkridge. Recent rain had left the soil damp, so the bird was finding rich pickings.