Unidentified Wildflower

Lots to do today but before I start, this flower is annoying the heck out of me.

I am sure that I used to know it well and I just cannot remember what it is. No, my mind is a complete blank.

I know that I should seek expert help but I am too embarrassed, anyway there are a lot of really clever people that stop by this blog and I am sure that one of you will know what it is.

It was growing way out in the forest at the bottom of a valley, very damp ground and quite open, so lots of sunshine.

Now did anyone see what I did with my marbles? I can’t seem to find them…

Pardon My Ignorance

Does anyone know what this is?

I will be honest, I haven’t really tried to find out yet. I just saw it yesterday. By the end of today I will know all about it and it will be a part of my life but this morning I don’t know what it is.

I can’t tell you very much about it. It is yellow, it is pretty and it wants to be my friend. That’s all I know.

I am going to take Fizz up to the sett and pick up the Badger Cam and then I will go and get some more pictures and find out all about it, if you don’t tell me first.

Thanks for looking 🙂

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…..