Wolves Wild

A single feather (from a mallard?) floating in the canal at Compton, showing its water-repellant qualities.

Twenty plus shovellers on the boating lake at West Park, about two thirds of them drakes. Just a few stragglers off on their own. Most of the birds were feeding in two nearby groups, swimming round in tight circles, beaks under the water, shovelling for food.

View over a partially-frozen boating lake to the West Park Conservatory, a thin layer of snow still on the ground in the morning after falling overnight. The picture of the bandstand was taken from just a few yards further away – it has been enhanced, using cloning to cover up the edges of a manhole in the foreground.

Pair of magpies snacking on grain someone had put out on one of the lakeside benches in West Park. They carried on eating when a female mallard came along to take a share.

Moss growing in St Leonard’s churchyard, Bilston, some encrusted with frost which had formed overnight.

Earlier this month, most of the surface of the West Park boating lake frozen over. Almost all the birds were swimming around on the remaining patch of open water. Just this lone lesser black backed gull standing on the ice.