Wolves Wild

Common blue damselfly resting on the decking of the bridge over the pond at Compton Park, warming itself in the morning sun.

Coot chicks on Island Pool, Baggeridge Country Park.

Two types of conifer, one with the fertilized flowers beginning to develop into cones, the other showing the future cones while the flower is still laden with pollen.

Bee methodically working its way around the flowers of a cow parsley as it gathered pollen or nectar.

West Parks’s resident gulls lining the lake shore near the Conservatory early one morning. One of the gulls had grabbed a better vantage point at the top of a metal pole at the water’s edge.

Honeysuckle flowerbuds just about to open, covered in delicate hairs to discourage and creature which might otherwise nibble on them,

A picture-filled post. On my most recent visit to the Castlecroft section of the canal, there were three different sets of ducklings, each with their mallard mother, on one hundred yard stretch of the water.

Two of the broods looked like they had only been hatched on the previous day, perhaps even earlier that morning. The other chicks were already old enough to have lost their early fluffy cuteness.

The mother of what looked like the youngest set of all was keeping her young ones together in a very tight group as they swam along in the shadow of the far bank of the canal.

It’s been a good year for yellow rattle, flowering among the long grass of the Barley Field.

A young moorhen chick on the nest at the edge of the canal at Castelcroft, and a somewhat older one swimming on the water nearby.

On my most recent visit to Northycote Farm, several lambs, along with their mothers and some sheep of a more exotic species. There didn’t seem to be any urgent need to separate the sheep from the goats.

Poppies growing in a front garden. Not the usual red flowers, nor were they yellow. Instead, they were orange.

Wren in a prominent position on the highest twig of hawthorn bush by the canal towpath at Castlecroft, singing to proclaim its territory.