Wolves Wild

No difficulty working out which is the sow and which the boar from these Gloucestershire Old Spot pigs in a field near Claverley recently.

These bullrushes on Doxey Marshes have been pecked by a bird, so the seeds are just escaping from one patch near the tops.

Buzzard sitting on the fence of a roadside enclosure. Every so often it would dip down onto the ground in the enclosure, presumably when it noticed a morsel worth eating, then come back to sitting on the fence.

It didn’t seem noticably worried though it saw me walking up fairly close in plain sight to get these pictures. Perhaps it was a young bird.

Honesty growing by a footpath near Brewood, with blossoms in the middle of February. A field guide gives the plant’s flowering season as April to June.

Cormorants gather in some numbers near the upstream junction of the Exeter Ship Canal with the River Exe in Exeter. Here is one standing on the edge of the weir by the junction, and one swimming in the river, diving for fish, then flying off.

Red and green leaves on a ground hugging plant growing on the landward side of the dunes at Dawlish Warren.

Enigmatic footprint in the sand of the dunes at Dawlish Warren. The nature reserve gets long list of mammals. Have you got any suggestions what this one could have been?

For some time now there has been a black swan living on the River Exe. A couple of years back I saw it swimming near the Quay, by Exeter city centre.

Last week it was some miles further downstream, paddling by Topsham Quay. As it passed directly below it looked in fine fettle.

Cockle shells left behind on the intertidal zone of the bay in the river beach by the bird hide at Dawlish Warren.

In the absence of the penduline tits, the stars of the show were a group of two or three water rails on the RSPB Bowling Green reserve, regularly showing themselves close by the footpath to the viewing platform.

They were foraging close by a pair of moorhens, and it was striking how small the rails looked in comparison. As they foraged in the part-frozen soil they often disappeared behind tussocks of grass. Sometimes only their tails were visible, looking remarkably like rabbitsscuts.

White camellia flowering at the back of Exeter cathedral close earlier this month.