A Quick Bit of Butterfly Love

 So many reports of large numbers of painted ladies being seen around the UK this spring, and I can certainly confirm that I've seen a couple. 

More than I can say for small tortoiseshells, which seem to have had a disastrous winter hibernation season. 

This individual was lurking among the cotoneaster bushes on campus, you'd think they's stand out a mile, but they really don't until they move. They are so beautiful, and I love the fact that their latin name is "Vanessa"!

The second butterfly is a female orange tip, and like other species that have spent the winter as pupae, they seem to have done much better than the early rising imagos. I've seen plenty flying around, and this one was in the library nature reserve, and unlike most orange tips was actually rather easy to photograph! 

Hopefully you are all seeing some lovely butterflies about. 

Si

All text and images copyright CreamCrackeredNature 12.05.26 

Rock Cranesbill Love

 On our campus, in the little nature reserve area I and others created many years ago, there is a patch of rock cranesbill growing happily away next to a hawthorn hedgerow. 

They are now blooming pinkily resplendent, and as such are a big attraction for pollinators. 

I saw three different species of bumblebee in short succession yesterday - a common carder, a buff tail and an early bumblebee - while today brought a tiny worker common carder in its distinctive golden furry coat. 

Lots of honey bees also flying around and I caught a glimpse of a red tailed bumblebee queen, the first I have seen this spring. Rather worried about their numbers after the wet winter. 

In other news, my local swift colonies are returning, and I'm starting to hear screeching...

Si 

All text and images copyright CreamCrackeredNature 06.05.26 

A Victorious Return to Cricket

 Today the league cricket season returned, and it was to the beautiful setting of Croxton Kerrial, a ground in Leicestershire that used to be the home of a club in the Lincolnshire league, to play a match in the South Notts League bottom division against Bingham 4s. 

Our third team have not won a game for two years. Last year was awful, playing horrible teams at horrible grounds in horrible matches that led to horrible defeats. This year augurs better, nicer grounds, nicer opposition. As it proved today. 

Croxton Kerrial is high up in the Vale of Belvoir, and it's a lovely old village, with the cricket ground set on the the only flat part. As with so many grounds in this part of the world, the red kites seem to love it, and we were graced by low overflights by Britain's most attractive raptor at various intervals. 

The hawthorn hedgerows were in blossom, attracting butterflies, and across the Vale you could see bright yellow fields of oilseed rape in the distance. 

Our skipper, eyes gobbling up the sight of some very short boundaries, decided against type that we would bat first. However, when I went out to umpire first up, you could see from the wicket that batting was not going to be easy. It was obviously going to be slow, and the odd ball was going to pop up. 

And so it proved. We were bowled out for 91, and owed much to two of our senior players who scored about half our runs while the youngsters hung around with them. Me, I was delighted to not get out first ball, and even managed to score two whole runs. 

Although one of them was an outside edge past slip. 

91 wasn't much, but with the wicket now adding pea-rollers to its treacherous mix, we felt we had a chance if we bowled well. And led by our junior bowlers, that's exactly what we did, aided by a glory hunting skipper. We had them 50 for 8 or so, but things got rather tense at this point, as the younger Bingham lads down the order showed a lot of the heart and cricket sense that their senior players had failed to do. 

Myself had a little bowl, and was rather excited to take a wicket with a caught and bowled, two separate things that never happen happening at the same time. My celebration of my first league wicket in two years was thus rather over excited. 

"Mate, he's 13" said the Bingham umpire rather drily. 

More tension ensued with byes, wides and the ball just no longer going to hand in the field. They got to 75, the two youngest lads on the team, before our returning junior castled one of them with another grass cutter of a ball. 

Poor lad was despondent, and his bat and helmet came in for a bit of abuse on the way off. Well, it had been a very tight game. 

But, we won, our first win in two years. Yay for us. 

Si

All text and images copyright CreamCrackeredNature 02.05.26 

Sketching Again - Have a Look

 God bless The Works. It has brought me a large amount of art supplies for very little money, because me spending more than a fiver on pastels and paints is a complete waste of money. 

I like my pastels and black paper the best, as they seem to give the most vivid results. I choose local subjects, working in life or from my own photos.

I know I'm no artist, but I find it really helps my brain to concentrate on art for a few minutes. It helps my Tourettes for those periods, maybe helps with motor co-ordination. . Also, it's something to add to my creative archive. 

And I just like filling books with stuff. I can never have too many notebooks. I might time capsule them somehow. 

Si 

All text and images copyright CreamCrackeredNature 28.04.26

More Library Critters

 Yesterday we had sunshine, but it wasn't super warm. Indeed, as soon as the sun went behind a cloud, it was three layers time again. 

But this lower ambient temperature has a big advantage for us nature photographers, especially those of us who have a mobile phone rather than a £600 DSLR. It slows the fast moving solitary bees down enough so we can get enough close to them to have a hope of getting a half decent shot. 

Such as it was when I went on patrol in the wildflowers in the wildflower gardens. And on the wildflowers, the bees were having a bit of a rest. 

There were nomad cuckoo bees, small and normally so fast on the wing you can barely follow them. A red mason bee, taking its time on a buttercup. Various mining bees were chilling out, and even a hairy footed flower bee was taking a break in the red dead nettles. 

They all had a mobile phone poked at them. 

The results came out ok, I suppose. I hope you like them anyway. 

Si 

All text and images copyright CreamCrackeredNature 20.04.26 

What did I Find Today?

 A day that started grey, brightened up and was then drowned  in hail and cloudburst rain gained me three new species for the year on campus. 

The action was mainly centred around the cherry laurel that has now come into pungent bloom. As soon as the day had warmed up enough to wake them up, these shrubs were surrounded by fast flying little mining bees of some description, hardly ever settling to feed. 

When I did get a photo, it baffled iNaturalist, but later research by myself led me to believe they were chocolate mining bees. They are quite understated compared to some of the other mining bees, but still an attractive find. 

Only one of the next species, but rather easier to photograph was the ever dapper ashy mining bee, Steed from The Avengers in apian form. I don't see many of these, so to get one early in the season was a bonus. 

Finally, on a rosemary bush that the law says you have to crush the leaves and smell, was the first (not so) early bumblebee of the season. 

A rather nice trifecta, I'm sure you'll agree. 

Si 

All text and images copyright CreamCrackeredNature 15.04.26 

Butterflies and Beasties

 We had a decent Monday here, that resulted in me taking a long old walk through the park - with a tea stop of course - and around to the cemetery, before rounding off my exploration in the library gardens nature reserve. 

I took a lot of photographs on this walk, but for now, I will concentrate on the shots that I got in the library gardens of an orange tip butterfly, a holly blue, and finally a sun fly in its Juventus style football jersey.

Of course, these butterflies were not being very co-operative and I couldn't get close to them, so apologies for the shots being a bit soft. 

Now that we are getting better weather, it feels incredibly important to me to be outside as much as possible again. Getting the walking done, doing training runs for my half marathon in August, playing cricket sciatica allowing, and also maybe even doing some painting with the pocket set I bought. 

All while listening to Radio 4 and trying to learn new things. Ah Radio 4, the sign of middle age! 

Well, I am, I guess. 

Si 

All text and images copyright CreamCrackeredNature 14.04.26