Wolves Wild

Wetland Lake is the landscape water feature of the new development in Compton Park. Until yesterday it was surrounded by buildersfencing which meant it was only visible from a distance.

The lake is fed by a previously culverted section of the Graiseley brook. The lake has already established vegetation and a wooden footbridge, from which this picture was taken.

It’s already beginning to attract wildlife: a first quick stroll across the bridge gave a view of dragonflies as well as other water insects.

Safe up a tree on an island in the lake at West Park, a heron stays watchful.

It even kept an eye on me.

The size of these blackberries gives away that they are a cultivated variety.

Purple loosestrife in flower, as it grows by the edge of the pool at Bantock Park.

Soft downy “parachutes” carry thistle seeds away from the parent plant. Here it looks like the plant is having a bad hair day. Have the seeds been disarranged by the wind, or by hungry birds?

Ripening damsons, one of which has been attacked by some kind of insect.

A sprinkling of white pollen has fallen on the lower petals of this great willowherb flower.

Half-developed acorns: these were on one of the oaks bordering the Smestow Valley Nature Reserve’s Barley Field.

Several Wolverhampton parks have magnolia trees with attractive blossom in the spring. But our climate doesn’t encourage the development of the fruit.

These were in a small municipal park in the south of France.

Ragwort plants can look somewhat scruffy. But that impression disappears in a photo taken with the camera lens almost touching the flowers.