Wolves Wild

Skeletons of stalks and seed pods from last year’s southern marsh orchids in Baggeridge Country Park.

Pair of lesser black backed gulls (or just possibly yellow-legged gulls) which engaged in synchronised ritual-seeming activity by the tip of the Bylet at Bridgnorth.

They repeatedly dipped their heads in the river – mostly at the same time, though I only managed to grab pictures when they had switched over to doing it alternately.

Ladybirds which had been using the Bantock Park spurge’s flowers as an overnight refuge.

They were possibly harlequin ladybirds.

Carrion crow on the top of a tree near the River Severn, constantly turning its head to keep an eye on everything which was happening.

Close-ups of a few of the flowers on the spurge growing close to the entrance of Bantock House.

The same juvenile cormorant featured in a post yesterday. Early the following morning an atmospheric mist was rising off the lake.

Wood anemones in Himley Plantation. There had been a heavy dew earlier that morning, leaving the plants still wet, and the flowers were being slow to open under a cloudy sky.

Young cormorant which has recently been on the island in the boating lake in West Park. Probably brought down by bad weather while it was on migration.

Horse chestnut leaves (on trees in different pieces of woodland) as they are emerging from their sticky bud and once they have half opened.

Every year several little grebes overwinter along the stretch of canal between Aldersley and Wightwick, but move elsewhere for the breeding season.

This year it looks like just one might be sticking around not far from Wightwick Mill Lock although it is now in breeding plumage.

Moss forming a carpet on the trunk of a tree, the fruiting bodies standing out with the ends drooping. The fruiting bodies turning red have presumably already shed their spores.

A mass of frogspawn finally hatched, possibly as recently as earlier on the same warm morning of the day these pictures were taken.

The tiny tadpoles were still gathered in a great crowd in the same area the spawn had been lying. Later they dispersed to hiding places more widely over the pond.