HERE COME THE CREATURES

As usual, I go out for one thing and come back with another.

This time, I went to look at the sea and came back with pictures of creatures.

Do I know anything about creatures? No! So, here are some mysteries.

The first is this little fly on an alexanders flower.

January 31st 2013
Phil at The Cabinet of Curiosities suggests this may be  a dung fly
Scatophaga stercoraria

If I had taken a picture of its back as well as its face, I might have been able to have it IDed. But I didn't. None the less, I am charmed. Indeed, I am so charmed I have set it as my laptop background and I sit here gazing inanely into its eyes (oh, fly! what big eyes you've got!) and admiring its poise, the frog-like angles of its legs. If ever one were able to fall in love with a fly, I have fallen in love with this one.

The alexanders (Smyrnium olusatrum) are zooming up. Most years, they do this, then they get zapped by frost and go all droopy. So far, though, so good. Not that it matters. Even if they do get zapped, they recover - and there are millions of them! I've not counted so maybe it's merely thousands. 'Lots' doesn't cover it.

They seem to be popular for sitting on. Here's another fly on an alexanders leaf. This one a little bigger.

January 31st 2013

See the round, yellow dent? This is caused by Alexanders Rust (Puccinia smyrnii). For ages, I didn't realise it is a rust and would, each year, poke around looking for insect eggs. Nothing to do with insect eggs. (I'd hoped for butterflies, ah well.) Rusts are a kind of powdery fungus (do not quote me, this is very unscientific language but, unless you are scientist, I think this is a good way to describe it). It counts as 'parasitic' because it harms the plant but it doesn't kill it. This rust, though, does make the leaves look pretty ugly when it gets a hold.

Next distraction was that a trench had been dug into the narrow path I use to make my way between brambles and buddleia.

January 31st 2013

The ground is soft from rain, though not muddy, and some animal has made a huge groove leading to a hole in the bank. It runs for several yards and includes a right turn into what appears to be a dead end part of the way along. But what has done this? Dogs sometimes scrabble around holes but they don't make a massive pathway. I don't know what a fox hole looks like but the BBC Nature Site suggests the area round it smells strongly - and this doesn't. So I'm left with badger. A badger would easily be big enough to do all this digging - and they like grand entrances to their setts. But is the hole big enough? And would a badger do this to a path regularly walked down by lots of humans? It may not be Oxford Street but it's rare one doesn't meet someone here.

Then to the beach.

I had planned to photograph seaweeds but was quickly diverted to footprints. And here's the next mystery. (Only a mystery to me. If any bird people read this, I'm sure they'll easily be able to put me out of my mysteryness.)

Two kinds of bird tracks dominated - similar except some were about two inches across and some only an inch and a half.

January 31st 2013

Some footprints are indented with clear indications of a web.

The two crisp holes in the sand beside the track print interest me too. Any ideas?
January 31st 2013

Some have depressions running either side of a ridge and no sign of a web. I don't know whether these differences reflect different foot structures or it's merely something to do with the sand and the water.

And, there we have it. Two flies, yellow rust, a dug up path and some bird prints. Not what I went to find  -  but that's the pleasure of a walk.

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