Wolves Wild

A pair of carrion crows were walking on the ice on West Park lake. I originally got the camera out because the one farther from the shore was occasionally slipping and sliding.

But as I began to take pictures, it stopped walking, and instead began to peck vigorously at the ice. I thought it had pecked its way through to the water below, and was eating something it had noticed at the ice / water interface. Looking at these pictures, I’m less sure. It was eating something. But that may have been some of the fragments of ice which its pecking had created, or perhaps a morsel which had been frozen into the ice.

A heavy overnight frost decorates the leaves on the ground, whether they are the ones which fell last autumn, or the fresh ones from new growth anticipating the arrival of spring.

The skeletal remains of last year’s plants, still standing as the first signs of the new year’s growth are showing. These knapweeds and meadowsweets are among the flora which have established themselves around the Compton Park pond.

A small flock of shovellers overwinter each year on the West Park lake. They’re the most reclusive of the ducks there, spending most of their time loitering or feeding in the water close to one of the islands. For once, a pair swam a little closer to the shore where I was standing.

Bright yellow flowers in front gardens in January: winter aconites hugging the ground; gorse at eye level on their spiky bush.

Canada geese standing round in one of the puddles which form near the West Park lake in wet weather, with the surface of the water giving very slightly distorted reflections of them.