Wolves Wild

The snail was eating as much as possible before the sun warmed everything up.

The foam of “cuckoo spit” is the protective cover for the nymphs of froghoppers – the name describes the habit of the adult insects in jumping from plant to plant. Overnight rain had left a drop of water hanging from the foam, forming a minute lens.

The male and female flowers grow on different plants. I don’t know which these are.

A common butterfly on hot days in spring, but normally hard to photograph. Usually very flighy, heading off at even a distant human approach.

This one settled to feed where I was already standing looking for other subjects, and then spend some minutes feeding, giving me views of it from various angles.

Wings from above and edge-on; its incredibly furry-looking body, long antennae and, in some pictures, seemingly even longer tongue probing flowers.

This is a male – the females lack the orange mark on each wing.

This robust thistle was growing as a weed in someone’s front garden.

Once opened, the wild flowers look like dandelions on a taller, thinner but tougher-seeming stem. IIRC, they are indeed related.

Previously unposted images from one of the series posted earlier. Unlike the earlier sets, these have been cropped.

Another common hedgerow plant and garden weed.

The field maple flowers are inconspicuous like many trees. The flowers come out at the same time as the leaves.

The leaves of this tree were already showing galls (the raised reddish spots) from the mites which infest them.

The “eye” markings on the wings, supposedly reminiscent of the markings in a peacock’s tail, showed clearly in the bright sunshine.

Growing on damp ground.