Her Finest Hour

I nearly called this post “The Fizz Show” she wants her own show.

Fizz has been missing from my last couple of posts. That is not because I  am neglecting her, No I have been neglecting my camera.

The weather has been so terrible here that for the last couple of days I haven’t bothered taking my camera out with me. It is dark and raining with a constant gale force wind. So Fizz has had all of my attention. She didn’t mind.

I realise that most of my readers consider Fizz to be the leader of this team and see me as the side kick, I am not a jealous man, she hasn’t done anything particularly noteworthy just recently so I thought that tonight we could reflect back on what was her finest hour.

Cast your mind back to the end of March.

We had only just started going out together. I didn’t just grab her out of the garden when I arrived here. My landlord suggested that as I was out for several hours each day maybe I should take his dog along.

“What does she do?” I asked. “She is a trained nature detective dog and exactly what you need,” he replied.

It had been a very wet winter and quite frankly she looked a bit scruffy. I don’t normally hang out with scruffs, I’ve got an image to maintain. I decided to give it a go, I had nothing to lose.

At first it probably wasn’t great. She was the jealous sort and she ate everything that I tried to photograph. This isn’t good in a photographer/photographer’s assistant type of relationship.

(lesser Celandine being ate)

(Pheasant’s egg being ate)

When her moment came I knew exactly what was on her mind and tied her to a tree while I took the pictures.

“Col! Col! There’s something in the leaf litter.” We were walking down a country road and she almost dragged me across to the other side. She doesn’t really do drag, she is quite little. “What is it little Dog? Do you want me to follow you?”

I think that she wanted to make Moleburgers but I wasn’t up for that.

This is a wonderful little British mammal and we don’t get that much chance to look at these. You little photographers assistant you. (I would never have seen it without Fizz though)

I was really grateful to Fizz for finding me that little animal and she was made up. For the next few days she was seeing Moles everywhere. (but not real ones)

I guess that is what started our relationship.

I just really created this post because I know that there are some people who really like Fizz. She is fine she isn’t being neglected but right now it is really difficult to photograph anything.

Scruffbag 🙂

I am a hippy and an anarchist. The way that I look symbolises my freedom. I am plainly nobody’s servant. My long grey hair and beard represent my independence. She is a scruff.

People do not look like their dogs 🙂

Does this look like a Chicken?

Hi,

I have had another frustrating day and once again it has been the Common Blue Butterflies that have been the cause of it.

Now you would think that a famous naturalist like myself would know the answer to the question posed in the title above. Nevertheless I followed this little Butterfly around for two hours in the sure belief that she was about to lay an egg. (Without any real success, I should add)

It would have been a great picture.

Okay let me explain why I mistook this pretty little insect for a Chicken.

Female Common Blue Butterflies spend their days nectaring, warming up in the sun and laying eggs. The primary larval food plant is Bird’s-foot Trefoil. They seek out a plant and then lay a single egg on a leaf. This female was settling on Bird’s-foot Trefoil giving it a good investigation and then crawling onto the leaves and wiggling about some, She was also making clucking noises, I think. Then she would move on to the next flower and do the same again. It made sense to follow her.

The trouble was Bird’s-foot Trefoil is such a little plant and there was so much grass. It was just very, very hard to see exactly what was going on and to photograph it.

So you tell me what you think is going on here?

Look closely at the position of her abdomen (Tail end) and the concentration on her face.

That is a Chicken laying an egg. In my world that doesn’t cut it, you have to see the egg emerging and deposited on the leaf. So it is frustration for me but I shall try again.

Some good things came out of this.

“Wise” people often pose the question, “Which came first, the chicken or the egg?” and they feel secure that nobody will ever be able to answer that one. I know and in nanoseconds you will too.

Did you see any Chickens in this post?

Eggs were being produced millions of years before Chickens were invented 🙂 🙂 🙂

Take care. I have a great unidentified wildflower coming up, you will have to be very clever to get this one. 🙂 (I don’t know what it 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…..