Wolves Wild

A few flower buds were still to open, but most had done so some time before. Their petals were beginning to shrivel, their season nearing its end.

This year’s West Park greylag goslings were near the lake, nibbling at the grass. They were in a creche, watched by both sets of parents and a couple more adult greylags.

Suddenly they all started to walk, heading away from the water. I thought I might have got too close and disturbed them. But when I turned slightly, a swan with a cob on was swimming directly towards the geese as fast as it could.

It was indeed a cob. Possibly the one with this year’s brood of cygnets: they were further round the lake, watched over only by the pen, although hidden by the island from the events I was watching unfold.

I don’t think I’ve ever seen a swan with its body held so tensely in the threat posture before. It totally ignored me as I stood, somewhat nervously, nearby. As it stalked in the direction of the geese, they carried out a dignified retreat.

Acorns just beginning to form. The pictures were taken, as it happens, preciscely a month ago.

A small leaf beetle. Plagiosterna aenea is apparently not conspicuous enough to have attracted a vernacular name. Despite its size, its metallic appearance makes it stand out against the leaves it is resting on.

A poplar on Poplar Island, Shrewsbury. The trunk was home not only to the usual collection of mosses, but also to a couple of red campion plants, in flower when these pictures were taken.

A male damselfly, one of the demoiselle (or agrion) species, resting on long grass in the local nature reserve section of Poplar Island by the Severn in Shrewsbury.