My 50th entry in this blog is a photograph of a dragonfly – species unknown – perched on a chimney pot.
You might think it’s not the most stunning dragonfly you’ve ever seen – it isn’t flourescent blue or red. But click on the thumbnail and view the full size photo. Zoom in and examine the wings. See the rows of squares, pentagons and hexagons – just how symetrical are the opposites? Nothing’s perfect, but nature’s flight engineers have been working on this one for some time.
No Need to Click Here – I’m just claiming my feed at Feedster
Urban foxes are well known these days, there’s probably one in every street and they seem to be getting more and more casual about walking around in broad daylight. This little film is about urban seabirds. Since living in London I’ve started to notice more kinds of birds making themselves at home in the city, birds which would normally be associated with the ocean, countryside or other environments. Kingfishers on the canal in Hackney, increasing numbers of Heron too. Sparrowhawks circle the tower blocks and Terns swoop down to fish the waterways.
I first saw Cormorants as a child around the Isles of Scilly, way out at sea or sitting on inaccessible rocks drying their wings. So I didn’t associate them with inner city estuaries like the Thames. Around London Bridge they can be seen most days, flying past, bobbing about in the waves or diving for fish. Just before sunset seems to be good time to catch them doing this, on my way home from the evening sessions but I sometimes spot one flying over from my morning journey too. It makes me feel good and smile whenever I spot one, I don’t know why. I even wrote a few verses about them, on an airoplane bound for Bilbao. It’s one of the batch waiting for another clear week in order to compose the music. The video is realtively lengthy at just under 3 minutes with sound, so I’ve made two versions available, one at 6.2Mb and one at 9.5Mb for broadband users.
I made some people envious today because my school was used for a polling station so I had most of the day off. I won’t write about the elections but I’ve included a recent photograph of some newts in my pond. They’ve been particularly active recently and given lots of pleasure by making themselves visible at the surface. At least 4 individuals have been counted in my small pond, so there are probably quite a few more altogether. At the same time there were some spectacular damselflies – photos to follow shortly.
Went for a wander in my local woods at Wanstead Park, with perhaps a vague idea that this might be a good time to see a show of bluebells. The spectacle was quite breathtaking, and the photograph below hardly does it justice.
I’m fairly certain these are genuine native british bluebells, under threat from the more vigorous spanish variety.
My ukcider website has transformed overnight into a campaign centre since being alerted by a newspaper article in The Guardian to an urgent threat to ancient apple orchards in England. The UK government’s proposed replacemnet for the Common Agricultural Policy leaves orchards and hop farms out of the flat rate farm subsidy, which means that farmers have a financial incentive to destroy orchards and plough them up before the end of this year. Continue reading →
Canada Geese are becoming a nuisance on many of our inland lakes, rivers and larger ponds. A species non-native to Britain, they seem to thrive better than our native geese and swans, especially when people throw them dozens of loaves of bread and sacks of rice. More pictures of the Duckpond here
Andy Roberts is a writer who initiated DARnet. Contact me on aroberts@gmail.com or @aroberts on twitter
