Wildlife from Wolverhampton and nearby
Two moorhens on the canal at Compton. The bird on the left has a beak which hasn’t yet turned red: it’s not yet an adult.
They use the fallen elder branch in the middle of the picture to step between the bank and the water. There is a patch of ear fungus growing on the branch.
The ripple beds of the Wren’s Nest Reserve, Dudley: rock laid down under a shallow sea millions of years ago.
A frosty December morning, with the rime thicker on the crests of the ripples.
The side view of the beds (hill on right of picture) shows many more layers of ripples still waiting to be exposed.
Earth star fungus under the hedge by the canal towpath near Castlecroft.
Probably a different species of earth star to the ones pictured in a post last week.
The kestrel featured in a recent post started to fly as soon as I had been able to take one photo.
I thought I had disturbed it.
But all it did was fly to the middle of the field, and start to hover.
After a short while, it stooped. It flew off to perch in a more distant tree. As far as I could tell, it had caught something and wanted to eat.
These pictures are in reverse order: the lower on the page, the earlier.
Ivy leaf with frost crystals growing from the rim earlier this morning.
Kestrel perched at the top of an oak tree between the canal and the Smestow brook at Wightwick recently, keeping a sharp look out for prey.
Copious flowers on one of the viburnum bushes in West Park during the first week of the new year.
More pictures from the group of waxwings by the canal
at Compton last week.
Most of the group resting high in an alder.
One perched in a hawthorn, as another lands.
The same two birds, their crests and wings showing well.
One of the group of waxwings by the canal at Compton
last week, here in a rosebush as it was picking off hips to eat.
The old year’s seeds and the new year’s catkins growing from the same tree.
Seeds and catkins were both covered in frost when I took the pictures during the cold spell in December.