Wolves Wild

The rails around the edge of West Park’s boating lake are a favourite lookout point for the resident gulls. Black headed and lesser black backed gulls chose this curving section.

Another of the species of wildfowl where small flocks congregate on sheltered waters in urban parks as winter approaches. Tufted ducks are diving ducks, feeding on vegetation at the bottom of the water. These birds seemed to be disappearing to eat almost every time I took a picture. They are also all males – the females were being more elusive that day.

Mycena species mushrooms growing on a lawn right by a pavement. Although they were growing within arm’s reach, I didn’t think it was a good idea to lean over and pick one for more precise identification.

Not a sight I’ve ever seen before: two female blackbirds fighting on one of the patches of lawn in West Park. One evidently thought the other was encroaching on her territory.

The fight was intense, but brief. These pictures cover a four second span, from shortly after the fight kicked off to the point where the intruder flew off. She headed off to another, nearby patch of lawn. As she landed, there was further menace. A rat emerged from the fringing shrubbery and challenged her. A further retreat, then rat and blackbird both disappeared into the shrubbery, at some yards separation.

Small blobs of fungus with a blueish tinge in their colour, on a fallen tree trunk in the wood at Himley Plantation.

Moth which landed on a nighttime window, with its feathery antennae showing in the pictures taken against the light.