Lying in puddles

There has been a simple misunderstanding here. I was not lying in a puddle, I was moisturising . Even tough guys have to look after their skin. She is only a puppy so I understand….

She is not really a water dog.

I see that I’ve changed my Gravatar.

No, it’s cool. I thought maybe that we could have one with both of us in it. I have got one that I use on Google….

The weather has been really against us these last few days but I thought that you would enjoy these excerpts from our walks.

We are not walking along a stream bed in this next video this is a footpath.

I few days ago I started a conversation with a fellow in Australia. I became fascinated with their practice of burning grassland and brush before the available fuel builds up to dangerous levels. It is so different from the UK. Here dead wood habitat is vital to our biodiversity and burning dead wood is the worst waste of a very valuable and scarce resource. Australia is a very different country and the UK is very wet. I shouldn’t complain.

The other silly thing that happened to me was that I offered to help a fellow set up a CCTV system because he was borrowing my trail camera and I wanted it back. Wow that went pear shaped. I had told him that I could do it but then he wanted the system to run through his lap top and that created big problems until yesterday we went out and bought a monitor. Ever said that you could do something and then wished that you hadn’t volunteered yourself?

So it is seven o’clock on Saturday morning and outside it is tipping down. We are so lucky to live in this green and pleasant land.

Catch up Poochy!

Spring is coming.

Romany-ing around

I have been out for a nice walk this morning, on my own though and in a bit I will have to take Fizz out. It is raining at the moment.

I met a fellow this morning and he told me his name was Pete. A Romany Gypsy who has now settled in the local village. Pete knew a bit about Butterflies.

While I was talking to Pete I noticed the Bracken was colouring up nicely.

If you have ever wondered what Bracken is here for, it is to make me happy and it does it’s job well. I have started to take photographs but I am not ready to do a post about Bracken yet

I am also noticing that Blackberries are beginning to ripen on the Brambles, it is starting to feel like “Late Summer.”

Pete was walking the littlest dog that I have ever seen, it would have made Fizz feel big. So I politely commented, “That’s a little dog.”

Pete used to own and breed Lurchers, he is 77 and retired now but once he made his living off his dogs. He told me that he used to show them and also organise shows. In his heyday he would have 1500 people paying five pounds a head to enter a dog for the chance of £3000 in prize money but it has all changed now.

Don’t complain to me about that, I am not responsible for the conditions of Romany dogs fifty years ago, nor do I know anything about those conditions. I imagine that they were loved and cared for as one of the family. I just like meeting interesting people.

Pete told me that he missed his dogs sorely, the last one died last year having picked up a tick in the woods. He still has a little companion if and when he fancies a kick around in the field. Which reminds me that my little side kick still needs a walk.

It wasn’t a bad day for Butterflies, I got some pictures of the amazing and colourful Meadow Brown. (It is in this next picture somewhere)

I have felt that I had a duty to photograph the Meadow Brown and I did my best but I kept getting distracted by the more mundane little insects.

The best bit of this morning was that I got good pictures of the female Gatekeeper. I have been after those since I posted the male a couple of weeks ago. (Post coming up)

The biggest disappointment was that I didn’t see a Clouded Yellow, that was what I was really after. Pete had seen a few about last year but that didn’t help.

I also saw and photographed some beautiful wildflowers.

They all have posts coming up but maybe I can’t do them all today. I have a strong desire to wash my kitchen floor and take Poochy out for a game of ball.

So, sorry to do such a b-rambling post…

I just wanted to write about Pete and set a few things in my mind for the next time that we meet. Little details are important. 🙂

Beautiful Bracken

This is a post about the soothing green colour of Bracken in the early summer.

I have to post this now because yesterday evening as I was walking Fizz I noticed that the Bracken in the hedgerow was starting to colour up. I love Bracken when the Autumn colours set in and the hedgerow blazes with red and gold. In my wood in East Sussex we had a lot of Heather that would flower just when the Bracken was at it’s most striking and the sight was breathtaking. I used to think that a photograph could never capture the beauty before me and if it did, no-one would believe that it was real.

Before all of that happens we have this lovely green. I took these pictures three or four days ago, over at the quarry because I was struck by how soothing and peaceful the colour green is.

Animal Magic

“Just like that”

It’s your destiny

The Swallows have fledged, or at least they are fledging. They are still in the nest today but they have been out and they can fly.

It has taken me a few days watching and all that you get are a couple of short video’s but for me, my understanding and the pleasure that I got from watching them makes a few days just a drop in the ocean. It was time well spent.

Anyway you should be glad that you don’t have to watch the whole twenty hours of video, that I now have to sort and delete from my machine to free up space.

Here are the best bits.

Yesterday morning there were five birds on the nest, there were five birds on the nest and then there were four birds on the nest. I had missed the very first flight and only realised when number five returned to the nest.

This first video starts with the mother calling for them to leave the nest, there is a little comic interlude of the way that they follow flies, their little heads bobbing in unison and in the last bit the second bird to approach the nest is the returning chick. Does he bring food back or do the others just think that he has?

This next video shows them leaving the nest and returning. They spent most of the day fluttering around inside the little alley way that has become their home and by the end of the day they were all settled back on the nest but this is fledging. Today I think that they have ventured outside and seen the blue sky but they still return to the nest.

These birds have made me think a lot about nature as a whole thing and about life and death in the wild. The caterpillars that I am trying to raise are falling to the parasitoid flies that these Swallows depend on for food and survival. The parents have done a really good job of raising them given the wet weather we have been having. I have often looked out in the pouring rain and wondered how they are managing to raise a brood and now this, flight.

I am so in in love and in awe of them and so damned jealous.

I am jealous because they get to eat those delicious crunchy flies, or perhaps because they can raise offspring in a matter of weeks and not the 26 years it usually takes us. Maybe I am jealous of something else altogether…..