Wolves Wild

Ever on the alert, watching and listening, a magpie stalks on a patch of short grass in West Park, occasionally stooping to pick off another insect.

The Perton post-box crocheter had been at it again, with another seasonally-themed cosy. This one was for Easter, with lots of eggs and chicks. It was already after Easter when I spotted it some weeks ago, so it might have been replaced by something more topical.

Over the winter, West Park lake attracts twenty or so tufted ducks each year. Come the spring, most of them are off. Sometimes a few still hang around. This year, there seem to be two pairs. This is one of them. The drake, black and white, was asleep on the water, but still had an eye open watching out for danger. The black and brown female was swimming nearby.

The Barley Field in the Smestow Valley Nature Reserve has been developed as a wildflower meadow. With the cold and damp weather this spring, there hasn’t been much of a show of wildflowers.

The blackthorn hedge around the field has put on its usual display, visible in one of these shots. Then, late last month, cowslips started flowering.

The day after the West Park coot chicks had hatched, so I went back to see if they were out swimming yet. They weren’t. They were getting lots of parental attention. One parent was on the nest, seemingly feeding them continuously. The other parent was constantly swimming from the nest; diving for food; then swimming back, climbing on the nest, and passing the food to the other parent.

Golden netted iris in a front garden. There had been a few days with blustery breezes, but the flowers weren’t showing signs of any ill effects that I could see.