Wolves Wild

One or two young blackbirds noisily and eagerly gathering the ripening mulberries from the tree on the riverside terrace of the Dirty Duck (more formally the Black Swan) in Stratford on Avon.

The tree is associated with Shakespeare, so lots have been planted in Stratford.

The berries were too big for the birds to eat directly from the tree, so they needed to move them to a resting place nearby to eat them in stages. While doing so, they knocked off more ripe berries than they picked, bombarding the drinkers below. Mulberries leave a dark and stubborn stain if they land on clothing.

Large thistle flowers (top and bottom)

A partly dispersed seed head which the flowers develop into

This bolete was growing on a front lawn last month. I leaned over the garden wall to get the pictures, but didn’t get enough details to work out which bolete species it was.

The large yellow underwing moth is a common species, though this is the first one I ever noticed. It flew into an outhouse, and rested up for a day behind an old spider’s web on a dirty window. It wasn’t caught, and went off that evening.

Gatekeepeers are the most colourful of today’s trio of brown butterflies. The upper wings have large orange patches before turning brown towards the edges. Each forewing black eye spot has two white dots, and there are smaller eye spots on the upper surface of the rear wings.

Meadow browns are predominantly a dull brown colour, but with an orange patch towards the front of the forewing. The black eye spot on the top and bottom of each wing has a single white dot in it.

Three members of the brown family of butterflies for today’s posts. All have eye spots on their wings to try to scare off predators. All are about the same size and have similar silhouettes.

Ringlets are brown in colour, sometimes darker and sometimes paler. They seem to spend most of their time flitting around even if no-one is near, but especially if someone does approach them. So it is rare that they stay still long enough to get a good look at them to see the somewhat indistinct markings clearly.

They have multiple eye spots on the under surface of the wings, but just vague darker areas above.

Seen by the side of the canal towpath near Castlecroft, tow plants, each some sort of umbellifer, with foliage which was red.

Pond skaters rush around the surface of still water with their middle and rear legs supported by surface tension. Look closely to see small indentations in the water surface under their legs.

Water boatman, a common water insect, rushes round the surface of still water lying on its back and using its large rear legs as oars. Nowadays often called by the American name of backswimmer to distinguish them from an unrelated insect which swims on its front.

Hornbeams have winged seeds, designed to be dispersed from the parent tree by the wind. These seeds, as yet unripe, are hanging down in a bunch from the end of a twig.

Swallows strung out on telephone wires like notes on a musical stave, with most of the birds stretching out a wing. They may be this year’s chicks, getting ready for their first long flight on the migration to the southern hemisphere.