Wolves Wild

Yellow archangel is a bright flower in the spring. Found fairly often locally, usually in hedgerows (or that’s where I notice them).

Shield bug trying to look inconspicuous resting on a leaf in the Dutch Garden at Bantock House.

End of a horse chestnut twig. The leaves had opened, and the flower buds on their spike were just about to open too.

Bumblebee on a dandelion, gathering nectar. The breeze was blowing the flower around, but the bee was clinging on firmly.

Coot parent and chicks old enough to be feeding themselves, on the Birmingham Canal.

They were pictured just minutes before the very young coot chicks featured here, so near they must be based on the next available nest site.

One of the chicks was persistently pecking at the steep side of the canal, presumably finding something tasty to eat.

This year’s crop of blackthorn flowers attracted a lot of feeding insects – here a peacock butterfly.

This has been been a good year for bluebells. Here’s a selection of pictures from various wooded areas in and around Wolverhampton in the last few weeks.

Some nice fluffy ducklings for May Day. These were on the canal at Newbridge with their mother in mid-April.

There were five ducklings altogether. They had already grown up enough to be confident on the water. The group was well spread out, so I’m not sure whether all of them appear here.

The 21 locks section of the Birmingham Canal, between Broad Street Basin and Aldersley Junction, has cowslips flowering by several of the locks.

There are very few, if any, by the stretches of canal between the locks, so they are likely to have been planted.

Gold lace auriculas have formed the centrepiece of the Dutch Garden at Bantock House recently, planted in the middle bed of the garden.

Shining cranesbill prefers limy soil, not often found in Wolverhampton other than in gardens. But it can be found, growing apparently wild, by a stretch of the canal towpath opposite the Wildside Activity Centre.

Ramsons, also known as wild garlic, are found growing under trees, often near water. Like many plants of the woodland floor, they flower in the early spring, before the shade of the leaf canopy has closed in.