Wildlife from Wolverhampton and nearby
Rooms excavated out of sandstone in Badger Dingle.
In the days before refrigerators, servants of the occupants of the big house would pack snow and ice in these deep places in the winter. The rooms were cool enough that the contents would stay all summer available for use as they melted very slowly.
The theme of today’s posts is Badger – the Shropshire village, not the mammal.
For starters, a couple of views across the lower pool in the middle of the village to the quaint thatched house by the water’s side.
Highlight of a visit yesterday to Northycote Farm was a Gloucester Old Spot sow and her litter of piglets which I thought looked less than a day old.
Eat, sleep, grow.
Other subjects, including lambs and an older litter of piglets of the same species, to follow when I get around to posting them.
The long cold spell delayed all the spring flowers, but bluebells are now here
These were in the woodland margin of Barley Field.
A water beetle making a hearty meal from some of the frog spawn
in the pool at Wightwick Manor garden.
Wood anemones seem to have thrived this year, once spring weather finally arrived. The ones by Berry Brook on Northycote Farm (above) were so abundant I guess they are genuinely wild.
In Wightwick Manor gardens they are concentrated in the edge of the woodland nearest the house, suggesting they have been planted.
Jackdaw out so early on May Day morning that there was still a frost. It was taking leaves from a pile gathered for composting, and using them for its nest.
Song thrush singing on a hedge near Wightwick Mill Lock.
Compare the plumage with the larger mistlethrush.
Garden bush – this one in the detached part of Wightwick Manor’s garden which is accessed by the wooden footbridge across Wightwick Bank.
Water forget-me-nots, growing by a pool in the garden at Wightwick Manor.