Until July 2017, documenting the seasons of coastal Dorset. I'm a complete amateur so don't trust I'm always right. If ever you see I'm wrong - whether with identifications or in anything else - do say! Meanwhile . . . I've now moved to Halifax in West Yorkshire. Click on the link below to collect the new URL. Don't forget to follow there!
Showing posts with label CREATURES. Show all posts
Showing posts with label CREATURES. Show all posts

Sunday, 19 August 2012

WHEN THE MIST CLEARED

First - slug alert. If you don't want to see a slug, don't go down the page.

. . . Let's pause a moment . . . while the squeamish leave . . .

Hello brave remaining souls! Here we go!

This morning, when I woke, there was a mist and the world turned out to be a mass of webs; all of them dripping with silver and and festooned with drops. Some plants were layered with gossamer so thick it was not entirely pleasant. Others were simple and pretty; not an advert for the omni-presence of spiders, but keeping hold of the mist until the sun could steal it.

Another pause while the mist lifts enough to make sense of going out with a camera . . .

Fluffy seed-head in front of blue garage door



Mostly, this is a hedgerow blog but, sometimes, I go for a walk in the streets to see what's there. Autumn. That's what's there. In the sense that autumn is when fruit ripens, autumn runs parallel with much of the summer. Seeds are forming and ripening all the time. This morning, they were dotted with drops left by the mist.


Wall Barley ripening under Park Railings

Remember the park where we found the scarlet pimpernel and clover and barley grass? As you see, the main area has been mown but there are sprigs of wall barley ripening round the edges

and . . .

Small plants under park railings.

. . . also along the edges, under protection of railings - little plants thrive.


Along the pavements, this being early morning, an army of ground-hugging street cleaners are at work eating sick and poo - and each other.

Snail and rubbish in privet hedge




Some creatures prefer fresh vegetation. Snails are rarely welcome in gardens but, on the street side of a privet hedge they will do little or no harm. A creature has to eat!

Plant in un-planted planter

Closer


Need cereal for breakfast . . . There are planters outside one of the shops. (One of the shops which is next to an empty shop.) The plants here haven't been planted in a formal way. Their seeds arrived on the wind.

White Lichen on a Tree
The white lichen in the middle is probably Diploicia canescens

And, beside the traffic, trees the council planted grow lichen. There's something very restful about this. You hardly see it arrive. You hardly see it grow.

It's a mixed bag, a mixed world, a world chugging along mostly unnoticed on a Sunday morning.

But it's there.
* * *

Logo for Tree Following
ABOUT TREES

I've been away on holiday, busy, distracted, lazy, inefficient . . . and have lost track of where we are with tree following. If you have recent posts ('recent' defined rather loosely - say, sometime in the last six weeks!) let me know and I'll put links to them here next week.

Saturday, 23 June 2012

HERE COME THE OLYMPICS (IT'S SURPRISING WHAT YOU SEE BEYOND THE UNDERGROWTH!)

Do you know the story of Burglar Bill by Alan and Janet Ahlberg? When Burglar Bill goes into a house to steal, he takes more or less anything his eye falls on. "That's a nice toothbrush," he says. "I'll have that." As he dips in and out of other people's houses, liking the things he sees, he gathers up not only a toothbrush and a tin of beans but a box - with a baby inside. Never mind if you're seventy. You'll enjoy it.

Sometimes, when I go out with my camera, I have a similar approach. "That's a nice flower," I say to myself. "I think I'll have that!" Snap! Today, 'having that' turned up a surprising surprise.

Off I went.


That's a nice Convolvulus flower, I think I'll have that. Oh, look, there's an oak leaf, the ripening burrs of goose grass, blackberry leaves too.


http://looseandleafy.blogspot.co.uk/
There's some nice Viper's Bugloss. I think I'll have that!



After all, it is the prettiest of flowers.




Plod, plod, plod. If the Council hadn't cut the verge when it did, there would have been lots. Never mind, here's a small crowd.



Here's a nice fly. I think I'll have that!






Here's a nice snail. I think I'll have that too!




Here are some nice flags . . . here are rather a lot of flags!

Beyond the Blackberries

I don't just take pictures of flowers, I like the colours and shapes of other things too. Boats and wires and sea and blackberry bushes and . . . flags!

I'm not an Olympic kind of person. The nearest I've got is to try, three times, to find out if the Olympic Torch will pass the Elderberry Bush we are following. Still not clear about this. It may . . . but, if it does, I think it might be in a van. Doesn't seem quite right - carting it about in a van. We'll see. Van . . .

Beyond the flowers of Rape Plants

. . . The Greek Olympic Sailing Team. (Above)

The Alexanders are going to seed . . . beyond them . . .

One of the German Olympic Sailing Team cars on the left.


And the Turkish Olympic Sailing Team are here too. (The white van.)

For a reason I can't explain, I can feel excitement rising. A row of flags. Vans and cars parked by the sea. Is it possible that the sight of these is making me look forward to it just a little?


The Olympians were visiting a local sailing club. The Sailing Academy, home base for the Sailing Olympics is over there, below the big lump of land which is Portland.

But Loose and Leafy is a nature blog so I'd probably better bung in . . . what's nice . . . Comfrey?

June 2nd

Yes, I think I'll have that!

Monday, 16 May 2011

A WALK TO THE SEA AND BACK

April 27th 2011
At the end of April, I found a Lackey Moth nursery in a blackthorn bush. I'm not sure whether I like it or not. It's an extraordinary, construction - a kind of sealed over hammock made of a white material that's like spider-web. 


April 27th 2011




Inside - and venturing onto the outside too, the larvae.

May 15th 2011



Yesterday (May 15th 2011) I went to see what had happened. Life seemed to have stopped. But see the sloes? (The fruit of blackthorn.) At the moment, they are small and green. They never grow large but, by the berry season, they will be black.

No just going-home. What else to see?






All along the way, tall plants with white umbels.





And, opposite, a little path leading down to a little beach. (We've been here before.)


The bushes and undergrowth are making it a narrow way.


Then it opens out, you turn to the right and there . . .


This!


Where, in the rocks, we can't miss the millennia.






Pause, turn, walk back through the gap between the bank and the rocks








Where there's a thistle-type plant beside the way



And homewards past the teasels.