The Day That Sugar Rationing Ended

Hi, busy, busy today. I haven’t even done a flower post.

This is going to be my next one. (I think)

It is a beautiful little wildflower called Self Heal. I chose it because it is quite an easy one and I thought that I could write it quickly and get it done today but I haven’t been able to do that.

Fizz has been pestering me to let her go on Facebook.

She has been quite a help to me and so I said, “well, okay then,” and I took her out today to let her choose her own wall.

Excuse the quality but it was quite dull and she was a bit over excited. Anyway she found one that she liked and I think that it is a good choice.

Now I am old and I don’t really get Facebook but still I am helping her with the technicological side of things.

I have put a link to her Facebook page on my blog (top right) and I tried to help her more.

I tried to put some of my stuff on her wall but it isn’t appearing under her link???

I will sort these issues out for her, or I am not the technicological whiz kid that I think I am 😀

Now by all means be her friend but don’t expect lots of informative nature stuff, she is not exactly the brains in this organisation. She is more of “the cute one,”

You will get a lot of this…

and plenty of this..

But not a lot else.

She thinks that she will be good at this and maybe she will but as of today I have got 586 followers and Fizz has got No friends. Zero, Zilch, Not a one, Nobody at all!

In fact I have rushed this post out just so that I could say that. She thinks that one day, she will be the boss of me. 😀 😀 😀

So anyway I was helping her to register her account and fill in the forms and I said to her , “What do you want me to put for your birthday? You can’t be three. ” She said, “put 23.09.1953.”

Why? Well in the UK, following the Second World War, that was the day that… Oh! Read the title of this post!

There is such a thing as being “Too Sweet.”

From time to time people wander onto this blog to see nature and not cute little fluffy things… So here are some old pictures of a beautiful little animal.

Nearly forgot….

SPIDER ALERT!!!

This is a Green Orb Weave Spider, Araniella cucurbitina.

Fizz and I are still friends and she will always be on this blog, she is just branching out a little bit.

My little girl is growing up 🙂

I am well aware that I am behind with responding to comments and visiting you. I have set aside tomorrow and I will do nothing creative at all, I will just catch up. Thank you for being so nice.

Fizz will probably be quite active.

A couple of comments are alerting me that the feed on the side bar isn’t working. That will be why my hat isn’t coming up on her wall.

Try this Fizz on FB

Spider Alert!

Warning: This post may contain Spiders!

Hmmm… What’s this?

The great  thing about Spider’s webs is that they are quite easy to find and when you do find one there is very often a Spider near by. You just have to make like a near dead Fly.

This is the home of a Nursery Web Spider…. and here she is, Pisaura mirabilis.

Pisaura mirabilis is the only species of Nursery Web Spider that we have in the UK so identification isn’t difficult. This one will be a female because I have found her guarding her web. These female spiders carry their eggs around with  them in a big sack that they carry under their body. When the eggs are close to hatching she will deposit them in the web and stand guard over them, which is where we are now.

I found a couple of these webs a few weeks ago but I couldn’t find an adult spider. Those webs were full of spiderlings, maybe they had eaten their mother.

Spiders are very into the idea of eating each other so it should come as no surprise to learn that mating often results in the male getting eaten.

He has a way of avoiding being ate and it is known as”thanatosis.”

Thanatosis comes from a Greek word which means “Putting to death” and it is used to describe the act of playing dead. Grass Snakes do it and so do possums and so does our Spider.

When a male wants to mate with a female he brings her a gift, “Eat this instead of me,” during mating he keeps one hand on the gift because he doesn’t want to lose it and if she turns nasty he pretends to be dead until she calms down again. Love is a dangerous game.

This particular Spider seemed to want to eat me or at least my camera, she kept running up grass stems and waving her legs in my lens, unfortunately she was getting so close that those shots were all out of focus.

She is so cute 🙂

That is our Nursery Web Spider and I shall be keeping an eye on this web for spiderlings.

While I was out here I went to check on our Labyrinth Spider, no babies yet.

Nothing to be afraid of…

Don’t be afraid there is nothing there….

Just the best Hogweed Juice this side of Coleford. Go on little Hover fly, get stuck in.

NO WAIT!

What’s that?

A dark cloud hid the sun and just for a moment I thought that I could see something.

Is it possible that Misumena vatia has finally got her camouflage colours right?

The cloud passed.

Sorry little hover fly it’s my mistake, there is nothing there. It was just a shadow.

And that is the end of the Hover fly story.

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…..