Wolves Wild

The flowers of a snake’s head fritillary look much to large to be carried by the long thin stem, and do droop under their own weight. I noticed these in a well-kept front garden.

Bluebells, partly opened in front gardens, which attracted my attention when I was passing recently. There is a tiny hoverfly on the flower in the lower picture.

Moorhens rarely spend much time higher than ground or water level. This one was in branches of a tree spreading low over West Park’s boating lake, busily preening its feathers.

A patch of wood anemones (these were in flower two years ago). The patches can sometimes cover large areas in woodland, flowering in early spring before the new leaves of the tree canopy overhead put the ground plants into shade.

As the local authority financial cuts bite, staff like the parkies face ever-increasing workloads. One result is an ever bolder and almost certainly growing rat population in West Park (probably all the parks).

I rarely visit West Park these days without seeing at least one rat – emerging from the ground cover, going about its business and retreating back into the ground cover.

Often, the retreat is prompted when someone or some dog gets too close to the rat’s zone of comfort. Sometimes, it is when the rat has succeeded in grabbing some of the food visitors have left out for the birds or squirrels.

The rat in this picture headed straight for the brightly coloured litter: possibly a discarded bread wrapper with a little bread still inside. I just had time to get the one picture. A moment later the rat had seized the litter, and dragged it into the longer vegetation which can be seen in the background.

Flowers from a couple of the plants in a small patch of yellow archangel right by the canal junction at Aldersley – one of several species of possible survivals from a small garden back in the days when Aldersley Junction was an important transport meeting point. These pictures were taken in April 2014.