A Profusion of Wild Flowers and Insects

The East Dumbartonshire Council on the East side of Glasgow have been planting small open spaces like roundabouts, bits of verge at junctions and the like with wild flowers. It's lovely to look at and great for the environment. The insects love them. I stopped with CJ and Anna in Lennoxtown  at the foot of the Campsie Fells on our way back from an enjoyable lunch in the Courtyard Café in Fintry up in the Fells.

Here are some of the photos from that brief encounter:

A small view from above

A bumble bee getting close and polleny

A bee on a cornflower

Linum grandiflorum, Red flax

Painted Daisy, Ismelia carinata

Marmalade Hoverfly above Painted Daisy, Ismelia carinata

Hoverfly (Scaeva selenitica ?) on Cornflower

Greenbottle on Cornflower

An Unusual Museum

Most museums are devoted to informing people of things to be remembered or conserved. Opossum World in Napier is probably the only Museum in the world currently devoted to the extermination of a living creature: in this case the Opossum.

Its slogan is: Save a New Zealand tree. Buy Opossum fur products.

The imported Australian Opossum which was estimated (in 2008 when I last posted on the subject) to number 70 million in New Zealand eats an estimated 21 tonnes of foliage (mainly the young branch shoots of trees) each night - New Zealand's ecological nightmare.

Tufted Ducks

Recently when I was at Grimshader (a small township about 15 miles from Eagleton) I saw some Tufted Ducks on a loch. They were a good distance away and my camera, though adequate, is not perfect for these pictures but here they are:

Birds and Bugs

There are no birds.  There are lots of bugs (in the widest non-scientific sense).  

Until this morning I had not seen a bird apart from some pigeons, swallows and a gathering of unidentified corvidae in San Giminiano.  This morning when I went into the garden I could hear the unmistakeable  chatter of sparrows.  I saw a small flock but they dispersed into the trees before I could photograph them.  Then patience won and I managed to locate a Blue Tit down in the grove below The Villa. Then I saw a couple of the inevitable starlings on the roof and a collared dove in the tree above me. It was before the sun had reached the fields so it was lucky there was enough light for the long lens. 

The bugs have, however, been more plentiful with the inevitable - now dead - horse fly when we were washing the car (it may amuse you to know Pat that the lump on my leg is every bit as spectacular as the lumps you had) and the occasional mosquito.

There are some interesting ones most of which I am not able to identify because although I brought the kitchen sink on holiday I forgot all my flora and fauna reference books.

Centipede (his carapace was over 2cm)

Grasshopper - big!

I thought it was a cockroach but I think they all have long antennae - about 2.5 cm and apparently missing 2 legs (which may be why he was crawling slowly up a wall)

Centipede - Possibly 6 cm long and very fast (Not as I first said a millipede 'cos it has only 1 leg each side of each segment)

One of hundreds of shield bugs which seem to love the bedrooms

Absolutely no idea but it was about 1.5cm long

Unbelievably fast and flitting I was very lucky to get this shot with the lens on long focus.  Help?

A fire bug

A splendid piece of armouring by the look of it.  No idea what it is though.

And another grasshopper capable of jumping at least three metres.

Help with identification would be appreciated.

Fauna in France

When I was at Viv's in France we went for walks around her extensive property which is home to a feast of wildlife.  Given France's obsession with the rights of the common man to hunt and shoot anything that moves Viv's land is a safe haven.  The land around however........

These Chevreuil or Roe Deer (Capreolus capreolus) were not quite as near as they seem but had we been hunters they would have been in range of a rifle (but possibly not a shotgun).

A squirrel had been at work:

These tracks through the grass were either badgers or deer

coming up through the woods

I could have shown you all sorts of other things that trackers use to tell what's been where but you might be having breakfast as you read this so I'll spare you.  It's fascinating, though, being able to tell what the various animals have been eating.

A Walk To A Bridge

Yesterday Peter and Bill and I went for a walk.  A very interesting walk.  A most enjoyable walk.  We walked from Callander town centre (where the friends I'm staying with live) up to the Bracklinn Falls on the Keltie Burn and then back through the woods to the end of the town and back along the old railway track. 

The new Keltie Bridge opened in November 2010, the original bridge having been swept away by flash floods in 2004.   This 20 tonne  bridge  made of local Larch and four 12 metre long Douglas Fir trunks was brought to the site in sections, constructed on site and winched across by hand.

The view up the burn from the bridge

The Bridge from below the Bracklinn Falls

Setting off for home

A startled Roe Deer decides whether we are a threat (this was taken with the equivalent of a 660mm telephoto lens - we are not really close

I've Got My Beady Eye On You

Pretty As

A Big Hedgehog

I feel sure that the majority of my friends in Blogland will be lovers of Hedgehogs.  Indeed as they are rather attractive living creatures I like them too.  There is however a very big ‘but’ attached to my that sentiment.  They have only relatively recently been introduced into the western Isles and the damage they do to the ground-nesting bird population is enormous.  I had evidence of that excellent nourishment when I found this chap in the garden a few weeks ago.  He was the largest Hedgehog I had ever seen. 

Oddly looking at him now I can only think about my very first encounter with a hedgehog when I was a small child.  We were holidaying in the Glyn Valley in Wales and there was a group of travelling people in the valley and, being an inquisitive child I went off to talk to them.  They told me they were Didicoys.  Until I just looked up Didicoy on Wikipedia I thought that Didicoys were Gypsies but I see that there is actually a subtle difference.  No matter.  They told me that the hedgehogs were very important to them as a source of food.  They used to cover them in clay and bake them in the camp fire.  The spines came off with the clay when they had baked.  I have to say that this splendid chap would have made a very good meal.  For someone else.  At moments like that I become a vegetarian!

A Fabulous Website

I just wanted to check the song of a particular bird and the first site I came upon in the Google search was http://www.arkive.org/ It is the most wonderful website for images of life on earth and is worth a visit. I shall certainly be using it for reference purposes in the future - notwithstanding that it didn't have the particular birdsong I was trying to check.

Aren't Birds Clever?

Sitting as I do in the Study with the bird table and feeders outside I see the birds coming and going day in and day out. It always amazes me how a bird like a Sparrow can apparantly fly at full speed up to a feeder and land perfectly on the perch. But obviously that's what they are designed to do and that's just what they do. I don't suppose they give it much thought. Yesterday it was very windy - not quite gale force. All the birds were getting blown about in the sky like pieces of paper. And yet the tiny light Sparrows and Greenfinches were still able to fly straight onto the feeder perches without even a hesitation. I was really impressed.

A Walk in the Country

This time yesterday (Thursday about 4pm) I was out for a walk down the lane at Maumulon. It was hot but quite bearable. Today it would be quite out of the question. In fact it is so hot that, even sitting reading in the shade, I have decided that a few minutes in the house doing a posting will cool me down a bit. This is not, you understand, any sort of complaint.

The walk was fascinating in that I usually cycle this lane and therefore don't stop to look at the nature around me. The first thing that struck me was the many many hundreds of little butterflies everywhere - almost all of a similar marking though some were cabbage white size and some much smaller. I did see a small blueish one and a very large one that actually stopped in front of me for exactly the amount of time it took my camera to decide to hibernate and then come out of hibernation. It (the butterfly, you understand) flew off as I was ready to take the photo. I have no insect books here but I think I'll remember it.

Unlike CJ's or Helen's postings this one will have no names against most of the flora and fauna 'cos I have no reference books here and have no internal hard drive memory for these things.

Anyway I hope that you will enjoy my walk as we go along the lane:

The start

Bullrushes - memories of childhood. I've loved them ever since

We had them in a vase at home when I was wee.

It's a long lane - fortunately shaded

"I trust you are not coming in my field"

You never know what's on the other side of the hedge

No idea

A wild bee ? on clover

Hot out here

Wilder than Helen and Ian's garden but still teasels

Is it really this long?

It's cornflower blue but ??

??

I coud have had enough for jam for a decade

No I don't think hip gin would be nice and I could find no sloes

??

One of a thousand

Some sort of growth on the roses?