Wildlife in and around Wolverhampton. Most of the pictures, including all the ones taken up to May 2011, were from places where I got to walking or riding a bike. Since then I’ve had my over-60s bus pass, which widened the range of opportunities of where I could look at and photograph wildlife while I took some exercise.
Because these pictures were taken while exercising there is an over-representation of subjects which don’t run away, especially plants and fungi. Most of the best pictures of most birds and mammals come after stalking their subjects, or staying quietly in one place for a long time, or in a hide. That’s something I do far too rarely.
At least one picture or set of pictures is posted daily at 8 a.m. UK time. The images are normally at least a few days old. My aim is to post fairly recent pictures other than in exceptional circumstances.
Click on any photo to go to a larger version hosted on Flickr. That version also indicates the date and time the picture was taken, and gives the approximate location on Yahoo maps whenever the spot is publicly accessible (e.g. not if it is in someone’s back garden).
Identification and naming: I am an amateur nature lover, by no stretch of the imagination an expert. There is every chance that the species of some postings may be misidentified. If you spot any such cases, please use the comments box below the posting to make the required correction.
Species will normally be identified through their common English name.
It is becoming increasingly common for some species to be given a more precise official English name than which they are commonly known by, for example birdwatchers will talk about the grey heron, a description which serves to distinguish it from other herons which are found in Britain only as occasional and accidental visitors. Such terms will normally only be used here to avoid ambiguity.
Identification and naming are a particular problem with fungi. Thousands of different species with visible fruiting bodies have been identified in Britain. Some are unmistakable. Others can only be identified after using a microscope to look at their spores, or by chemical tests – far too much trouble when my main interest is in their natural beauty.
Of these thousands of fungi species, only a few tens of species have long-established English names. As ever more field guides are brought out, some appear to be trying to carve out a market niche by inventing more or less convincing vernacular names for those species they do include.
