The long thin flower spike of a dyer’s rocket plant. Before the development of synthetic dyes, the plant used to be grown for the bright yellow colouring which can be extracted from it.
These pictures taken earlier this week, the plant growing by West Park pool.
June 6th: the egg or eggs in the West Park herons’ nest had apparently hatched a week and a half previously. On the day that happened, the adult birds had been paying a lot of attention to the nest and its contents.
Since then, they had seemed to be spending their time away from each other and some distance from the nest, at the water’s edge, fishing an preening.
Now they appeared, both standing on a tree growing over the water from the other island in the lake, together with a young bird still losing the down it had when it hatched. The chick is the bird in the middle. Already it looked to be almost the same size as its parents. It has an odd-looking spread wing posture characteristic of young birds in a couple of the pictures. Its rear end has a nappy-like appearance, where the down has not yet been replaced by tail feathers.
Flag iris with some flower buds, and other flowers already opened. These were growing by the small pond in Bantock Park and the pond in Compton Park.
Male large red damselfly at rest on a dried-out bullrush leaf. The next day what was possibly the same insect had switched to a preferred spot on a nearby greener leaf.
Pictures from some years ago, which I have just noticed I never posted before. A young red squirrel on the ground in the extensive grounds of the Charlottenburg Palace in Berlin. Evidently it was used enough to human disturbance to be relaxed while I fired off several pictures.
Sadly, not something we can expect to see around here.
Young coot, one of a pair of half-grown chicks, with droplets of water spread across its down from where it had been diving in the water for food.
The West Park lone greylag gosling not (yet) getting any more elegant as it grows. Here it was lying on short grass, taking care of its feathers.
Both parents were close by, just out of shot, watching protectively.
Young coot chick swimming away from shore in the greenish-looking waters of West Park lake.
Peacock butterfly with ragged wings, which spent some time with its wings spread on the wooden railing of the Compton Park footbridge. A little later it moved to a nearby flower where it continued to warm itself.
Young heron, a regular on one of the islands in West Park, standing in a fallen willow which is still growing as it hangs over the water of the lake.
Purple lupin flowering in one of the small but carefully planted front gardens of East Castle Street, Bridgnorth.
May 28th. Still one and the other of the West Park nesting herons spending its time on a convenient perch to guard the nearby nest, occasionally preening. The other bird nearby in a position where the fishing was better. The few minutes I was there neither bird actually returned to the nest.
Nothing actually visible over the rim of the nest, but the adult pair still acting like there was something worth protecting there.