Ninth of October
Buggy things and birdy things
Late autumn is a great time for garden spiders and their spiral webs.
The larvae of various insects are hatched and live inside leaves. These tracks are the evidence.
The kestrel was known by other names in the past:
I caught this morning morning’s minion, king-
dom of daylight’s dauphin, dapple-dawn-drawn Falcon, in his riding
Of the rolling level underneath him steady air, and striding
High there, how he rung upon the rein of a wimpling wing
In his ecstasy! then off, off forth on swing,
As a skate’s heel sweeps smooth on a bow-bend: the hurl and gliding
Rebuffed the big wind. My heart in hiding
Stirred for a bird,—the achieve of, the mastery of the thing!
Brute beauty and valour and act, oh, air, pride, plume, here
Buckle! AND the fire that breaks from thee then, a billion
Times told lovelier, more dangerous, O my chevalier!
No wonder of it: sheer plod makes plough down sillion
Shine, and blue-bleak embers, ah my dear,
Fall, gall themselves, and gash gold-vermillion.
From Randle Cotgrave’s 1611 Dictionarie of the French and English Tongues it would seem that the kestrel had another name deriving from their attitude to wind of which propriety precludes the present use:
Kestrels do hover fixedly over one spot on the ground below either by angling their motionless wings to counter the wind's buffeting or by flapping mightily to the same end.
Heron mooching around looking for frogs and small mammals in the grass.
Beyond saying it's a fly, I've no idea.
Where the plough has been.
Blue tit spied the camera
Hiss!
Didn't think you'd get away without a dock bug did you?
Heron landing on the rugby field.
#
The kestrel was known by other names in the past:
“The Windhover”
I caught this morning morning’s minion, king-
dom of daylight’s dauphin, dapple-dawn-drawn Falcon, in his riding
Of the rolling level underneath him steady air, and striding
High there, how he rung upon the rein of a wimpling wing
In his ecstasy! then off, off forth on swing,
As a skate’s heel sweeps smooth on a bow-bend: the hurl and gliding
Rebuffed the big wind. My heart in hiding
Stirred for a bird,—the achieve of, the mastery of the thing!
Brute beauty and valour and act, oh, air, pride, plume, here
Buckle! AND the fire that breaks from thee then, a billion
Times told lovelier, more dangerous, O my chevalier!
No wonder of it: sheer plod makes plough down sillion
Shine, and blue-bleak embers, ah my dear,
Fall, gall themselves, and gash gold-vermillion.
Gerard Manley Hopkins
From Randle Cotgrave’s 1611 Dictionarie of the French and English Tongues it would seem that the kestrel had another name deriving from their attitude to wind of which propriety precludes the present use:
Kestrels do hover fixedly over one spot on the ground below either by angling their motionless wings to counter the wind's buffeting or by flapping mightily to the same end.
Heron mooching around looking for frogs and small mammals in the grass.
Beyond saying it's a fly, I've no idea.
Where the plough has been.
Blue tit spied the camera
Hiss!
Didn't think you'd get away without a dock bug did you?
Heron landing on the rugby field.
Tenth of October
Mostly buggy things.
Wops
No idea!
#
Another weird fly?
Fungi
Shaggy ink cap
Phylum: Basidiomycota - Class: Agaricomycetes - Order: Agaricales - Family: Agaricaceae
Edible when young.
Drips black 'ink' rather disgustingly when mature.
Harvestman
aka daddy longlegs
Phylum: Basidiomycota - Class: Agaricomycetes - Order: Agaricales - Family: Agaricaceae
Edible when young.
Drips black 'ink' rather disgustingly when mature.
Harvestman
aka daddy longlegs
An arachnid but not a spider.
Muscovy bathing.
.
This is my favourite place to take a 'pondorama' .
Orange tip.
The male orange-tip is unmistakeable: a white butterfly, half of its forewing is a bold orange, and it has light grey wingtips. The female is also white, but has grey-black wingtips, similar to the white butterflies. Both sexes show a mottled, 'mossy grey' pattern on the underside of their hindwings when at rest. This one is on honesty and has gathered some pollen on the underside of its hindwings.
Speckled wood.
The commonest butterfly throughout the year on the north side of the pond.
This species is common in woods, scrub and tall vegetation throughout England and lowland Wales, and appears to be recolonising eastern and northern England and Scotland.
You can often see males perched in pools of sunlight or fluttering upwards in a band of sunshine in an otherwise shady woodland ride. Females lay single, white eggs on a variety of grasses along the sunny edges of woods, rides and hedges.
Cuckoo flower is a pretty, springtime perennial of damp, grassy places like wet meadows, ditches and riverbanks, as well as roadside verges. Its pale pink flowers bloom from April to June and are thought to coincide with the arrival of the first Cuckoo - a sure sign that spring has arrived at last.
The common name 'Lady's-smock' arises from the cupped shape of the flowers. However, 'smock' was once a slang term for a woman and the name may have alluded to certain springtime activities in the meadows!
Beefly bonanza!
I first noticed beeflies about two years ago. Since then I seem to see them everywhere.
The dark-edged bee-fly, or 'Large bee-fly', looks rather like a bumblebee, with a long, straight proboscis that it uses to feed on nectar from spring flowers, such as primroses and violets. It is on the wing in the early spring, when it can often be seen in sunny patches. In flight, it is even more like a bee as it produces a high-pitched buzz.
Red campion is a short-lived perennial that bears its male and female flowers on separate plants. Plants form clumps of downy leaves from which emerge flowering stems up to a hundred centimetres in height. Flowering is mainly in late spring. Flowers have five deeply notched, pink petals. Seed capsules have toothed edges as they open to disperse ripe seed on female plants.
Mum mallard keeping an eye on the kids.
We plough the fields and scatter
the good seed on the land
Bare trees against the sky have always attracted me.
Another beefly
Tiny spider on a gorse flower
Still seeing beeflies.
Turtle's still basking
Still great, still crested and still a grebe.
Speckled wood on garlic mustard.
You can see the pollen on the underwing.
Profile portrait with pollen.
Muscovy bathing.
Sixteenth of April
Lots o' butterflies among other stuff.
This is my favourite place to take a 'pondorama' .
Orange tip.
The male orange-tip is unmistakeable: a white butterfly, half of its forewing is a bold orange, and it has light grey wingtips. The female is also white, but has grey-black wingtips, similar to the white butterflies. Both sexes show a mottled, 'mossy grey' pattern on the underside of their hindwings when at rest. This one is on honesty and has gathered some pollen on the underside of its hindwings.
Speckled wood.
The commonest butterfly throughout the year on the north side of the pond.
This species is common in woods, scrub and tall vegetation throughout England and lowland Wales, and appears to be recolonising eastern and northern England and Scotland.
You can often see males perched in pools of sunlight or fluttering upwards in a band of sunshine in an otherwise shady woodland ride. Females lay single, white eggs on a variety of grasses along the sunny edges of woods, rides and hedges.
Tiny fly on garlic mustard.
Garlic mustard
Also known as hedge garlic and jack-by-the-hedge. A medium to tall biennial or short-lived perennial with small white, yellow-centred flowers. Flowers occur from April to June and are followed by long green seedpods which shed their seed from July onwards. One of the easiest ways to identify this plant is by it fresh green, heart-shaped leaves that smell of garlic when crushed.
Turtle, tortoise, and terrapin are all names for the hard-shelled, egg-laying reptiles in the taxonomic order Chelonia. Basically, they're all turtles. ... Terrapins are turtles that spend time both on land and in brackish, swampy water. The word “terrapin" comes from an Algonquian Indian word meaning “a little turtle."
Cuckoo flower is a pretty, springtime perennial of damp, grassy places like wet meadows, ditches and riverbanks, as well as roadside verges. Its pale pink flowers bloom from April to June and are thought to coincide with the arrival of the first Cuckoo - a sure sign that spring has arrived at last.
The common name 'Lady's-smock' arises from the cupped shape of the flowers. However, 'smock' was once a slang term for a woman and the name may have alluded to certain springtime activities in the meadows!
Beefly bonanza!
I first noticed beeflies about two years ago. Since then I seem to see them everywhere.
The dark-edged bee-fly, or 'Large bee-fly', looks rather like a bumblebee, with a long, straight proboscis that it uses to feed on nectar from spring flowers, such as primroses and violets. It is on the wing in the early spring, when it can often be seen in sunny patches. In flight, it is even more like a bee as it produces a high-pitched buzz.
Red campion is a short-lived perennial that bears its male and female flowers on separate plants. Plants form clumps of downy leaves from which emerge flowering stems up to a hundred centimetres in height. Flowering is mainly in late spring. Flowers have five deeply notched, pink petals. Seed capsules have toothed edges as they open to disperse ripe seed on female plants.
Mum mallard keeping an eye on the kids.
We plough the fields and scatter
the good seed on the land
Bare trees against the sky have always attracted me.
Another beefly
Tiny spider on a gorse flower
Still seeing beeflies.
Turtle's still basking
Still great, still crested and still a grebe.
Speckled wood on garlic mustard.
You can see the pollen on the underwing.
Profile portrait with pollen.
That's all for now.
You see - I look at your post and remember how much I like "Windhover".
ReplyDeleteT
'Tis an excellent name but I must admit that I like t'other one.
ReplyDelete