Wolves Wild

Robin taking a brief pause from singing, perched on a twig of a horse chestnut with leaf buds already beginning to open. Seen on Christmas Eve.

One of the last crab apples on a tree behind Compton Lock, shrivelled and shrunk.

Patch of fallen oak leaves in the Barley Field on a frosty morning earlier this month.

Gathering of swans at Stratford, where the Avon overflowed during Christmas. The birds eating grass of the flooded park near the foot of the bandstand.

Tree houseleek, a garden succulent, in the snowy period over Christmas: probably finding conditions less congenial that it would in the Canaries where the plant originates.

The lawn in front of the Tourist Information Office at Stratford on Avon is the territory of a family of swans which seem to have opted out of the fight for bread on the river, and for a group of carrion crows.