Wolves Wild

Grey spotted amanita mushrooms: the fruiting bodies come up regularly in late summer on a grassy area beside the Bridgnorth Road on the edge of Wombourne.

Common darter dragonfly taking one of its regular pauses between bouts of patrolling its territory, ready to chase off encroaching males or try to attract passing females.

This one landed right by my fee to rest on the decking by the pool at Compton Park. Two, and sometimes three of these males have been claiming territory on different parts of the open water near this decking, and regularly coming to take pauses on the wood in the afternoon sun.

Rabbit, obviously a domesticated variety, which was running loose by the car park at Northycote Farm when I visited recently, finding something to eat on the ground and retreating to the cover of the hedgerow whenever someone with a dog came by.

Hopefully it was caught by the member of Northycote staff who I mentioned its presence to.

Sow thistle flower. The plant was growing on a grassy bank, making it easy to show the flower from below even taking the picture at eye level.

Parasol mushroom with a very large ring half way up its stem. It was growing in the same spot in Himley Plantation wood where another group of the same species had been the previous week.

Family of swans: two adults and five now well grown cygnets, resting on the slipway of Oxley Marine boatyard near Autherley Junction. Ian Phillips of the Smestow Birders suggests these might be the cygnets which hatched in West Park earlier this year, and later disappeared.

Another swan family with the same number of cygnets are further along the canal, near Newbridge.