Wolves Wild

Flowers, and a flower bud, from one of the ever-changing front gardens in East Castle Street, Bridgnorth.

Common earthballs are, as the name claims, quite common. Found in woodland, in summer and autumn, usually in association with trees like oak, birch or beech. This one was in Himley Plantation recently.

Abundant this autumn, red admiral butterflies. At least five or six were attracted to feeding on the flowers of the same patch of ivy as the hornet hoverfly featured yesterday.

This winter’s hazel catkins already beginning to develop: these were on a bush growing in the hedge by the canal at Castlecroft.

Hornet hoverfly, a large hoverfly which looks like a hornet. Like all hoverflies it’s harmless. This was one of many insects attracted to a sunlit patch of ivy flowers by the canal towpath at Compton.

This is the largest hoverfly in Britain. Only occasionally recorded in England until after the Second World War; it is now well established down south and gradually spreading north, aided by global warming.

Heron standing on a dead tree on West Park lake, master of all it surveys. A couple of days earlier I’d been cutting through the park without a camera. Two herons were standing on the same tree, about as far apart as possible, each seemingly trying to stare out the other. This one would seem to have won the contest.