Forget-me-do’s

There is very little point in holding on to the past. What is gone is gone.

Today I am in the best place that I have ever been in my life. It is completely peaceful here, full of birdsong and the scent and colour of wildflowers. I am letting go of all that used to be, that was hard work 🙂

So my overly sweet and pretty little friend, you are a Wood Forget-me-do.

It is not always easy to get Forget-me-do’s to species, the Wood Forget-me-do is very similar to the field variety.

A British pound coin has a diameter of 22.5 mm (about the size of a wedding ring, I guess)These flowers look about 7-8 mm across. (Three to the pound) Field Forget-me-do’s are about half that size 3-4 mm. These flowers are also quite flat.

The shape of the calyx pushes the petals of the Field flower up making more of a cup shape out of it.

The calyx of the field variety is almost bell shape with the tips of the sepals closing to a point. The wood variety is more linear with an open end.

In both cases the individual flower stalks are about twice the length of the calyx. That pedicle length is key to separating some of the smaller species and so it should be noted.

Locally it is in flower now and you can see it in all the more open hedgerows as you walk into the village (dodging the devilish little lambs).

The large flower of the Wood Forget-me-do is the source of most of the garden varieties.

Goodbye whatever your name was, I am afraid that it has gone again. I do remember that you were a very pretty little flower.

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…..