Wolves Wild

Black-headed gull standing on one of the posts near the ferry across the river at Stratford on Avon.

Abandoned and overgrown entrance to a badger sett where a badger trail comes down from the Smestow to the towpath at Newhampton.

The sett entrance is just yards from this alternative way in, still in use. The old hole is so well covered in vegetation that I only noticed it on a second visit to the site, even though I thought I had had a good look around the first time.

The belief that birds pair up on St Valentine’s Day may be fakelore: it’s first mentioned in a poem by Geoffrey Chaucer. But many birds have indeed been displaying themselves this month.

This male blackbird was standing on a tree stump by the lake in West Park, appearing to be showing himself off.

Adlers carry last year’s fruits (or rather cones) even as the catkins which will produce the new year’s are on the tree.

These cones were on an alder at the edge of the Smestow Valley Barley Field about a month ago.

Carrion crow in one of the trees at the edge of the Barley Field. It was calling loudly, apparently at another crow.

The bright morning sunshine, so rare this winter, was catching its glossy black feathers, making some of them look almost white.

Close-cropped picture of a section of a small but dense patch of snowdrops growing by the side of the Smestow Valley Railway Walk where it is crossed by the road leading to the former municipal (plant) nursery.