As I went around West Park’s boating lake early one morning recently, this year’s six cygnets and the mother swan started swimming towards me then climbed onto the shore for a closer view.
Every other time I’ve seen them, before and after this occasion, they have been sensibly wary of people. On that morning, the pen was alert, but did not seem unduly worried.
Bumble bee clinging to a grass flower in the early morning, having used the spot to stay overnight.
The spike, or officially the Casual Ward, was the, unusally extremely unpleasant, short-term accommodation. Vagrants with no other options could get, usually, a single night in a squalid communal room and an unappetising meal in exchange for a set amount of soul-destroying work such as breaking rocks or picking oakum.
A pair of common blue damselflies (the female is actually green) resting on a reedmace leaf as they mate. Another male was flying by at the time.
Mould growing on a knot in the wood of a footbridge. It is growing in rings which follow those of the underlying knot.
Bee paying an early morning visit to a meadow cranesbill in someone’s front garden near Penn Common last weekend.
One of the swans on the lake at West Park. It seems to get annoyed with the other swans rather frequently without any visible provocation, and to adopt a threat posture or fly at them. Less often, geese get a sililar treatment.
Water boatmen skimming the surface of the Compton Park pond recently.
I’m not sure whether the mat of very small spheres in two of the pictures are insect eggs, or very small air bubbles clinging together.
Sedge growing along the Railway Walk, the weight of the flowers bowing the stem down.
Rose, which was growing on a bush climbing up a fence by the side of the Birmigham Canal.
Adult swan and six cygnets swimming near the island in West Park’s boating lake recently.
The heron from yesterday’s post was on watch nearby – the cygnets were just the right size to make a tasty breakfast for the heron. But all the cygnets were still thriving when I last checked, several days after these pictures were taken.
Some of the many red clover flowers growing amid the long grass of the Barley Field.
Well-grown coot chick by the edge of the pool at West Park. It spent all its time demanding to be fed by a parent, even though it looked big enough to gather its own food.
