Two types of butterfly, gatekeeper and large white, feeding on the same ragwort flower.
Shoo-fly plant again
Shoo-fly plant, seed case, flower bud and flower beginning to open. Several flowers on the plant, opening one at a time and lasting just for a day before they fall off.
Gathering by the water
During the long hot dry spell, a gathering by the trickle of water in the overflow of one of the lowest locks of the Birmingham Canal: a greenfinch, robin, bluetit, great tit and a female blackcap. All drinking, some also hunting insects.
Comma butterfly, thistle flower
Comma butterfly, the “comma” prominent on its underwing as it feeds on a thistle flower.
Fluffy coot chicks
Fluffy coot chicks on local canals. The younger set were with a parent opposite the Wildside Centre. The other pair, by the Science Park, were with both parents and what might have been an older sibling from a brood earlier this year, already in more or less adult plumage.
When I stopped to look at this group, all of them started swimming towards me at top speed, evidently expecting food.
Robin’s pincushion, Baggeridge
Robin’s pincushion, a wasp gall infecting rose briars, looking like a tangle of thread on a bush in Baggeridge Country Park.
