Scarlet tiger moth caterpillars crawling on the leaves of alkanet plants. The yellow and black stripes are a warning to predators such as birds with hungry young chicks: beware, we are toxic. The stiff hairs along their bodies are for the same effect.
Shown in some of the pictures are blobs which show the caterpillars use the leaves not just as support and food source, but also as their toilet.
This year’s Canada goose pair watch as their two surviving goslings graze near the West Park lake. Then they notice another of the Canadas coming towards them. The gander immediately goose-steps forward in threat posture, clearing their zone of comfort.
Beech flowers dangling from the tree, the red-brown colour matching that of the leaves.
A wagtail feeding on the bank of the West Park lake. It was walking along the water line; sometimes above the water, sometimes getting its feet wet. I wasn’t sure, but thought that when it bobbed its head down to nab another victim, it was getting them from the water, where it shallowed meeting the shore.
My first attempt at picturing spore prints of a mushroom, one of the St George’s mushrooms in the previous post, which someone had kicked over. The cheap microscope (“for kids”) I used has made for massive chromatic aberration — The spores are actually cream coloured.
According to folklore (or quite possibly fakelore) St George’s mushrooms are meant to appear on the saint’s day. Normally, it’s more likely to be a few days later, which was indeed when I saw these. They were on the steep bank of the cutting the Railway Walk passes through at Castlecroft.