Wolves Wild

Grapes ripening, hanging down over a garden wall.

Two young mangalitza sows on Mary Arden’s Farm, Wilmcote, which had managed to cake themselves in mud during the long hot dry spell this summer.

The King Stone is the third component of the Rollright Stones; a single standing stone, on the opposite side of a narrow but sometimes busy coutry rode to the stone circle. The two features are hidden from each other by a belt of trees cloaking the circle from the road.

The King Stone’s contorted shape is less to do with weathering since it was raised, perhaps around 1,500 B.C., than with bits being chipped off by people in more recent centuries.

Broad-leaved helleborine, a woodland orchid just about to flower on the edge of Lydiates Wood, Baggeridge Country Park, at the very start of August.

The King’s Men stone circle, 33 metres in diameter, originally constructed around 2,500 B.C., and with a long (and continuing) alleged association with witchcraft and other forms of paganism.

Since 2001 the site of the complex has been owned by a Trust, which has made changes to improve access, with predictable results.

A group of the Avon swans, and the odd mallard, following one of the river cruise boats at Stratford, as one of the crew throws food from the bow. The swans were already following the boat before there was any sign of the food. Presumably this is one of the regular attractions of the trip.