Wolves Wild

A visit to West Park over the Spring Bank Holiday weekend, where at least four sets of coots with nests by the same island in the lake had recently hatched chicks All the chicks looked like they had hatched no earlier than the previous day.

Chicks from three of those broods feature in these pictures, along with their attentive parents. The other set were still on the nest. The nest itself was farther from the shore, and hidden by an overhanging willow. And, from what could be glimpsed, it seemed that those chicks might only have hatched minutes previously.

A large bee resting on a laurel leaf, changing position slightly to catch the best angle in the sun. The pattern-matching algorithms of iNaturalist suggest this may be a chocolate mining bee.

The reddish tinge to this year’s leaves opening on the end of the twigs on an oak tree are from growth hormone. The yellowy-green catkins, the male flowers, dangle from the same twigs.

The sandstone rocks of parts of south Shropshire were formed when the area was in the middle of hot sandy deserts for millions of years. The different layers which built up as dunes accumulated on top of dunes show up clearlt where the rock has been cut back to make way for roads and houses, as in these rock faces at Worfield.

Clinging on as they grow through a gap under the edge of a garden wall in Worfield, violets in flower.

One of the West Park squirrels rushing towards me in the mistaken belief that I was bout to add to the peanuts others had previously given it.