Small Skippers are Fluttering

 Last week on our campus, the hot weather brought the emergence of the well named small skipper butterflies. 

These dinky orange butterflies with the wing arrangement that always makes them look like the flights of a dart were far too busy flying about to settle anywhere. 

Today, however, they were happy to feed off ragwort and pose for photographs. However, this was complicated by the fact there was a very strong wind blowing across the badlands, and so you had to find one sitting on a shorter plant that wasn't being blown almost flat to the ground. 

So I present to you this fine specimen. 

Also captured today was a new insect for me, albeit a common one. A red spotted parasite fly, so named for its sinister habit of paratising moth larvae. Of course, this was sitting on the stinky curry plant that seems to attract the underclass of the insect world!

Si

All text and images copyright CreamCrackeredNature 24.06.25

Life on the Curry Plant

 Many many years ago we tried to dig out and plant a wildflower herb garden for pollinators at the entrance to our work campus. 

It failed. The soil is terrible, we weren't given time to maintain it, and anything we have tried to plant in it recently has died, with two main exceptions. 

One is a rather nice smelling sage plant. The other is a rampant curry plant, that is currently in full flower with its little bright yellow flowers, and also smells - to my poor nose - awful, especially in hot weather. 

Plants are not supposed to smell like curry! It's just plain wrong. 

It does attract pollinators, but more flies, than bees and butterflies. However, today, it did have some very fast moving tiny bees that never settled, and I captured entirely by accident on the wing. A possible clover blunthorn bee, a species utterly unknown to me until today. I'm going on the pale patch on the face, and, er, what iNaturalist says. 

Most of the other denizens are beetles, hoverflies. flies and various less glamorous, but still important, little pollinators. 

They all have their uses. 

Si

All text and images copyright CreamCrackeredNature 18.06.25

Proper Village Green Cricket

 Sunday saw us take a decent Sunday side over to Car Colston, a beautiful and nowadays very rare village green ground, with a pretty pavilion and an excellent pub on the other side of the ground.

As ever the first to arrive, I inspected the wicket to find a moss green mattress, on which I lost the toss and was put into field first.

Nominally, I was captain. However, I had the captains of the firsts, seconds and thirds in the team, and things soon turned into a herding cats exercise. 

We opened the bowling with talented youngsters, but our opponents made a fast start thanks to chonky bats that seemed to consist entirely of edges. We dod get one of the opening bats out, only to then face Flintham's Aussie overseas player, who hit some mighty bombs while I wondered what to do next. 

It wasn't all bad, as to be fair Car Colston had put up a proper village green 11 against us, comprising of a couple of a really good players, with some rustic hitters rounded up from the nearest pub. So it was kind of equal. Ish. 

I bowled a few overs - a rare thing these days - and even took a catch to much sarcastic cheering from my team-mates. Took two wickets, including the guy who made 50, and also a bearded bruiser who hit me into a hedge. 

When we batted, the wicket became rather up and down, and apart from our number 3 who cracked 86, we were always rather behind the 8 ball. Not helped by Car Csolton putting 9 men on the boundary for our gun bat, which just isn't cricket in my view. 

I did get a bat, but having spent the entire innings electronically scoring with a device that made me look like a drone pilot, I had to get ready in a hurry, and ended up facing four deliveries with no box in place. All of which I missed in a sense of self preservation. 

Si

All text and images copyright CreamCrackeredNature 13.06.25

The Wildflower Meadows of the Library Nature Reserve

 The library meadows are near their peak, filling this small area with colour and the buzz of various bee and bumblebee species working their favoured blooms. 

Common blue damselflies are mating and laying eggs in the pond, while four spotted chaser dragonflies hawk for smaller prey along the hedgerows. 

It cost a lot of money for them to make it this way, probably way too much. It might be over landscaped. But it is still a beautiful place on a bright day. 

These pictures are from a few days ago, I've got a stinking cold - or something - and haven't been out around the town much. Grrrrr. 

Si

All text and images copyright CreamCrackeredNature 12.06.25

Some Recent Photo Miscellania

 Let's see what nature has given me over the last few days! 

My cricket matches are normally an excellent place to find things, as we often play at some very beautiful grounds, and even the less glamorous public park grounds often have wildflower areas rich with treasures. The trouble is, I've been so busy at the games I'm not getting any time to do any of my wanderings and pokings around. 

So, work campus, and the local nature gardens have been where I've been spotting things, such as the scabious loving vestal cuckoo bumblebees, the glittering emerald swollen thighed flower beetles, and the various other buzzing things that our out and about. 

Also, not really photographed as my mobile phone isn't up to it, are the swifts that scythe around my home screaming, the whitethroats, blackcaps and chiff chaffs at work whose calls are now more recognisable to me, and the wren that sings so loudly at the library gardens. 

I hope too are finding lovely things to see. 

Si 

All text and images copyright CreamCrackeredNature 09.06.25

Finally, a Victory!

 I've not blogged every game, but if you read between the lines on my cricket posts, you can probably see a common theme about this season so far. 

Every game I've played I've been on the losing side, and none of them were close. I was 0 and 5 for 2025. 

Rather rubbish, really. 

So today, I took our Sunday team out to play Wellow, on their beautifully rustic ground above the dam fishing pond, and near the Maypole I attended the celebrations at last weekend. The facilities may not be up to much, but the setting is delightful.

After a bit of negotiating with our friend the Wellow skipper, it was decided that we would bat first, on a snooker table green wicket surrounded by a tangled outfield that the Wellow mower had broken down on with the job only a quarter done. 

As ever, I went out to umpire with six little stones collected from next to the pavilion, which gradually turned my hands black. Lawnmower oil. 

Against the two paciest, and best, Wellow bowlers, it was apparent very early that the wicket was going to be a naughty one, with the ball bouncing chest high one ball, skittering along the ground the next. But after our senior opener unluckily dragged one on that kept low, two young batsmen made a really good fist of watching the ball hard, playing sensibly, and seeing off these opening bowlers, and what came after, for fifteen overs when we took drinks. 

At this point, I risked unpopularity by telling them that they had now done their job, and done it brilliantly, but it was now time to push on. 54 off 15 overs is a little light in the context of a 30 over game, and we had some power hitting in the hutch.

To their great credit, they then upped the scoring rate, one of them making the highest score in his young life of 33, which set the platform for some power hitting later on by our middle order, one of whom blasted 50 in about 35 balls. Many a ball was lost to the unripe green stalks of the adjoining cornfield. 

We closed on 174 for 5, a brilliant team effort. 

Time now to bowl, and also time for a sharp shower after a couple of overs. Again, I was unsure about most of Wellow's batting line up, and they started with a former Notts ladies player who batted with great class. But our young pair who had batted so well were up to the challenge, and got her and the other opener early doors. 

One of Wellow's opening bowlers now came on to bat, after umpiring in his pads, and he looked like he could play a bit. But after hitting me for a boundary, I got one to bounce on his and he spooned it to cover. 

After a month, my first wicket this year, and it was their gun bat, and most welcome after the drubbing I took on Saturday. I was bowling well, pushing the ball through a bit, and I soon had another wicket to end up with 2 for 7. OK, they weren't as good as Saturday's bats, but I really needed that!

The serious damage, however, was done by our second team spinner at the other end, who got some sharp turn even bowling with a slippery ball - the cricket ball that is - and took 5 for 18. Much better than me!

So, I captained us to victory and got myself off the mark for the year. I think I handled things pretty well. I'm not very good at the actual game perhaps, but I do know a fair bit about it, and how to run a Sunday game. 

And lovely house martins flew over the ground too!

Si

All text and images copyright CreamCrackeredNature 01.06.25