My New Speedo’s

Oh No !

I am going to write a post about a Speedwell flower.

I discovered one today that I hadn’t seen before, there are quite a lot of them. Anyway, you are not even in my post tonight.

Oh Please.

Did you wash your face this morning?

Veronica filiformis. This is Slender speedwell.

Worldwide there are about 500 species in the Veronica genus and in the UK we have about two dozen different Speedwell flowers. Half of those are quite rare and the rest… Well, it is just a case of finding them and photographing them. This is number seven for me.

With so many little blue flowers around the problem is usually recognising that I am looking at a species that I haven’t seen before. It is very easy to see a little blue flower and just think, “Speedwell.”

In this case I saw a fairly dense matt of pale flowers and thought, “Wow, speedwells without any leaves.”

They do have leaves , they are just quite small.

So here is my list to date.

(Germander Speedwell, Veronica chamaedrys)

(Heath Speedwell, Veronica officinalis)

(Ivy-leaved Speedwell, Veronica hederifolia)

(Persian  or Common Field Speedwell, Veronica persica)

(Thyme-leaved Speedwell, Veronica serpyllifolia)

(Wood Speedwell, Veronica montana)

And now of course…

(Slender Speedwell, Veronica filiformis)

So many Veronicas 🙂

I love finding new flowers and I love my Speedwell collection. I would like to add a few more this summer.

I am sorry that this daily post is late. We have been having power cuts all day. It goes on and it goes off and it has been going on for ages, very strange. I am probably the only person being bothered by it because it is now the middle of the night and everybody else is asleep but it is still annoying me.

Fortunately I have got my “light in a bag.”

It is called a Luminaid and it is a solar charged lantern. It throws out enough light to fill the room that I am in and I can read by it and for sleeping in the woods and stuff like that it is perfect. It charges itself in the day and runs all night.

I am not being sponsored to say this but I will see if I can find a video about it because I am loving my Luminaid tonight. (Fizz hasn’t got one but she is asleep)

THIS IS NOT AN ADVERT (I think it is a kind of charity thing)

I am not sure that I am allowed to put adverts on here but nobody is getting paid for anything here and if you want one then  you have to go and find one for yourself and all sorts of places sell them.

I did get approached by a company recently who asked if I would like to write about their product on  my blog but I didn’t really know what it was and so that is on hold for the moment. This little light really works and deserves a free mention tonight because it is dark here. (on and off)

I might like to do some kit reviews one day. It would be things like Buffalo Pile clothing (I bought my first Buffalo sleeping bag thirty years ago), Frosts, knife makers of Sweden (they are called Mora now but I still have my “Frosty”) My little Vango wood burning stove (that has been on here once). There  is kit that I have used for ages and I know that it is good but it wouldn’t be “paid for” advertising.

On that controversial note I will say Goodnight (Good morning)

Defamation of Character!

As you probably realised I have been away for a few days, gathering botanical specimens for the benefit of our understanding and not what Fizz said, that is just her impish sense of fun.

I was not lying in a ditch, I was in the pink.

Starting with pinks, I have got Primroses.
Not pins or thrums or even yellow ones, I have got pink Primroses.

This is the real thing, not a hybrid or garden escapee, this is the pink form of Primula vulgaris subspecies vulgaris a pink wild Primrose. They are not that rare but I didn’t have pictures and now I do 🙂

Now put pink out of your mind or the colours might clash.

This next one was a wonderful find.

I have been walking miles to get photographs of the various stages of Coltsfoot. A couple of days ago I was walking back from just such an expedition when we came to the gate.

This is where Fizz likes to play “The Gate Game.”
This particular gate is by the side of a track we regularly walk and it is very close to home.

The rules of the game are simple. She runs under the gate with the ball and sits there looking at me, she won’t budge. If I climb over the gate she runs back under, to the other side and we play again. She can play this game for a long time. It is so funny. (Her impish sense of fun, again)

This time when I climbed over, I forgot all about her and didn’t bother coming back.

Coltsfoot on my doorstep.
I have shown you the flower, it is a beautiful flower but that’s not it.

We had been out for about three hours in bright sunshine and we hadn’t seen an insect, not even a Butterfly. The Coltsfoot was swarming with them.

I need these photographs again for Easy Wildflowers. It is okay to say, “Provides a valuable source of nectar and pollen early in the year” but it is much better to have photographs.

Honey Bees.
When I photograph insects I really want to get the eyes and it can get very frustrating trying to capture Bees on Thistles or Dandelions because they bury their faces in the flower. Coltsfoot is lovely and flat and it doesn’t give them anywhere to hide.

Moving on…There were lot’s of Butterflies but all of them Small Tortoiseshells and some of them were quite badly torn so today I will move past them quite quickly. (We will have lots of Butterflies later)

(Butterfly nectaring on Coltsfoot)

I just want to show you one more insect today. This next one is a Hover Fly, called a Drone Fly it is a Bee mimic.

This is Eristalis tenex.

You can tell it is a Hover Fly and not a Bee because it only has two wings and it has a thick waist.

It has huge eyes that would meet in the middle if it were a male, this one is female and it has stubby little antennae.

It is not quite so easy to get it to species, they can vary in colour a lot.

This is Eristalis tenex because it has a banana shaped back leg (curved rear tibia).

The hairs on it’s back legs are longer in the centre of each section and that is indicative of species.

If you look closely there are two lines of fine hair running down it’s eyes. That is probably not very clear unless you are looking for it.

Oh dear. Am I boring you?

Just one more little flower today.

I have been fretting over this one. It is already in flower and I haven’t put it on EW yet. There are two subspecies and I wanted the pictures to show the difference. This is the flower in question.

The Ivy-leaved Speedwell.

You have to look closely

Really closely.

There it is.

A British pond coin is about the same size as a wedding ring and an Ivy-leaved Speedwell is the same size as the “G” in “REG.”Inside the flower there are even tinier bits (smaller than Fizz) and what I have been looking for is a picture of the anthers just before they open to produce pollen. There is a fairly small window of opportunity.

If the anthers are bright blue, before they get covered with white pollen and all the other bits add up then it is Veronica hederifolia subspecies hederifolia and that is what I think that I have got here.

Does it really matter? Will anybody ever look?

What do you think Fizz?

Fizz thinks that we should play ball.

Being Columbus

A few days ago I set sail for a new world. My plan was to explore it, meet the indigenous peoples and see if I could trade with them.

It is extremely strange. I don’t think that I have met any of the locals yet. I can’t figure out how they communicate with each other because they all seem to be invisible. I am enjoying being there despite the lack of progress and today I thought that I would show them some baubles in the hope of initiating some kind of trade. (They can see this post) I will accept anything of value in exchange for my trinkets.

To keep my friends back home entertained (They can also see this post) these are all new baubles and today my baubles will all be flowers.

This one is called the Scarlet Pimpernel.

There is also a Yellow Pimpernel, related by family but a different genus.

That is enough Pimpernels.

This next one is a Speedwell. This is Thyme-leaved Speedwell.

There are quite a few different Speedwells and while the structure of the plant may vary a lot, the flower tells you that this is another type of Speedwell.

Wood Speedwell.

Germander Speedwell.

The very  tiny Ivy-leaved Speedwell comes in two colours.

Veronica hederifolia subspecies hederifolia

and

Veronica hederifolia subspecies lucorum

Other than colour they are pretty much identical.

Last of the Speedwells for now this one is Common Field-speedwell.

Here is one that everyone knows, I have seen this on a lot of blogs this summer.

This is Queen Anne’s Lace (Wild Carrot)

So this is what has happened:

From time to time somebody visits me from the other side. I am trying to reach out and contact them. I have put a foot on their land, let us see if they want to trade.

A Tramp on Blogger

Blogger is a complete mystery to me but it only takes me a few minutes to copy and paste something that I have written for this blog into the other world.

If anybody here understands their culture then I could use a few tips.

I can’t see how they like a post. There is a little +1 sign that has appeared at the bottom of one of my posts, that may be their way of saying that somebody liked it but if so then how do you find out who liked it?

I can’t find a way to search for blogs that I may like, for instance to search for blogs about nature.

It is a very alien world but I am trying to emphasize that I come in peace and for trade. Later if they don’t die of our diseases and we can’t convert them then we will probably have to shoot them and steal their land. I think that is what colonists do but I will do some more research first. (Let’s keep that amongst ourselves for now)

I will just show them one more trinket. There are so many to choose from….

How about Ragged Robin?

I will let you know if I am able to make contact with anyone from the other side. It is all very exciting, I wonder what they will look like, just like you and me I guess 🙂

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…..