Latest Critters from our Campus

 Welcome back!

What have I been up to? Well, struggling with food is where I have been. I'm now wheat intolerant as well as lactose intolerant, and have to avoid foods high in FODMAPs like the plague. 

No more normal bread - I'm on gluten free stuff that is only free if toasted. No more cheese or milk. No more fried food. A lot of fruit and veg is now out. No more caffeine. 

Worst of all, no more rum. Jack Sparrow would be weeping. 

No more joy lol. 

So, rice and chicken anyone? 

There have been some improvements, but working out what is best for me as an IBS-M sufferer is proving to be really really tricky. This is a long term slog. 

I'm still keeping my eyes out on nature. Today's big prize was the sinister bee-wolf, a solitary parasitic wasp that likes to paralyse honey bees before feeding them alive to its offspring. 

A charming creature, to be sure. 

Hope you are all well. 

Si 

All text and images CreamCrackeredNature 08.08.25 

A First Common Blue of the Year

 You know me when I'm at work, when the Tourettes tics become too much, when the ADHD demands movement, that I take 5 minutes to have a quick bimble outside, to see what's afoot on campus, to spy what's on the wing. 

On a patch of grass,where a few birds foot trefoil where to be found - a species that seems to have suffered horribly locally with the dry spring and summer - a low flying glimmer of blue caught my eye.

Creeping a little closer, and taking great care not to lose it as it flew, I saw the tan coloured spots on the wing that indicated the presence of a male common blue butterfly. 

It settled on one of the yellow blooms, and edging closer still, I was able to get a few shots - sadly not great ones - as it happily nectared away in the warm sunshine. 

Small, and rather lovely. 

Si

All text and images copyright CreamCrackeredNature 25.07.25

See if I can find you Some Butterflies

 Let's dig into my recent photographs and see what butterflies and moths I can find for you! 

Si

All text and images copyright CreamCrackeredNature 21.07.25

Kinoulton Fun

 Sunday saw me take a side out to play Kinoulton at their pleasant little ground down endless bumpy lanes going out towards the Leicestershire border. 

I was thinking we were going to be going in with an actual 11 players, but as it turned out we had two late drop outs, so I was left with 9. Ah, never mind, I thought. It was a nice day, we'll figure it out. 

After "winning the toss" - me basically being asked by the very pleasant Kinoulton co-captains if I wanted to bat first, I tried to sort out some kind of batting order and see what would unfold. 

Kinoulton had said they had a very young side, but it certainly wasn't as young as ours. But our opening bats, the youngest and oldest players on the team I think, made a fantastic start, and batted with great authority for the first 15 overs and getting a fine 50 partnership on the board. I umpired for the second half of this, while spending the first half filming a hummingbird hawk moth that was putting on a show feeding off the buddleias in the posh gardens overlooking the ground. 

It was after drinks when things started to go wrong. One of the Kinoulton skippers, wearing an Oasis bucket hat which I found myself wearing while he was bowling. 

Cue much terrible punnage - "Champagne Super-Over", "Wonderball", and most disgracefully "Well that's Definitely Maybe out" being said myself when I had to give our young opener out plumb LBW. 

He then castled two more of our bats, taking three wickets for no runs and leaving us without much more batting in the tank, or so I thought. However, a debutant played decided to go postal in the last few overs with some big hitting. 

His power was remarkable, given that he didn't seem to move until the ball was about a foot away from him, before he whipped his wrists through generating incredible bat speed. In partnership with a young players dad, he got us to 124 for 6, much to my joy as it meant I didn't have to bat. 

I was actually going to send out a couple of the young ones to bat again. 

So 124 didn't feel like enough, especially as the big slogger who wiped us out last year was playing. But our young opening bowlers made a good start, although one of them said "You can't catch anything" when I offered to field at slip. 

No respect from the younger ones for their skipper.

He didn't need any fielders, as he soon castled one of the Kinoulton openers with a beauty. But this meant the big slogger came in, and it was time to patrol the boundary. 

But as it happened, he never got away from us. Our young slow bowler had him totally baffled, and he walked up and down the wicket before having to play a little block, or push a gentle single. He eventually holed out to the debutant at the other end, caught by his own captain who was fielding for us, and who refused to celebrate. 

So, they weren't murdering us, but they were getting the runs at the required rate. Gave myself a little bowl, and it went well, bowing their opener who top scored with one that turned two feet out of a footmark and kept very low. 

Too bad in the 28th over I suddently dragged a couple down short to lose us the game. 

In the end though, it didn't matter, we had a great afternoon playing a great bunch of lads, and there was a well stocked bar to retire to after the game. So all was well with the world. 

Si

All text and images copyright CreamCrackeredNature 15.07.25

One (or five) for the Road

 Last Saturday took us to Upton to take on Wollaton 4ths at Upton's beautiful ground. 

Now we are are very young team, 8 of us under 15 years old, with only the presence of myself, the Captain and a senior bat taking our average age above 13, as it seemed to me. We thought our opposition would be the same, but no, they turned out to be a bunch of very adult big biffers, albeit very nice big biffers. 

Knowing that if we batted first the game would be over in about half an hour, we agreed that Wollaton should bat first, and to be fair, our young bowlers made a good fist of things early on, on a blisteringly hot day where the most important fielding positions were those in the shade under the trees. It was so hot, even I ditched my usual Mr Miyagi headband for a cap as I patrolled my usual areas. 

To be fair to myself, I'm an ok ground fielder, just utterly hopeless at catching. Being reasonably fit, I also let the young ones field under the trees. 

We were doing ok until the last 10 overs, where a Wollaton big unit came out and decided to go big. Against our junior seam bowlers, he was reasonably contained, if you can call 10 an over contained. Against my off-spin, however, it was a different matter. 

I'd done no worse than anyone else until my last over. When this happened. 

Ball 1 - slightly too straight. Hit for 6, landed in a helmet in front of the pavilion. 

Ball 2 - On off stump. Fetched from out there and hit onto the road over the hedge at cow corner. Ball lost. 

Ball 3 - nearly bowled him through the gate. 

Ball 4 - went for 4 at cow corner. 

Ball 5 - Went wider in my approach. Hit straight back over my head for 6 into a haystack. Ball lost. 

Ball 6 - See above. 

Four overs for 61. I'm glad that before this game I decided to stop caring too much what happened to me. They ended up on 271 for 2. 

With no chance in a hail of hells of winning the game, we went out to bat and made a decent start. But with so many young kids against adult bowlers, we were always going to struggle. Muggins here did mange to hit a four to get us a batting point, before getting bowled attempting to hit a spinner to Nottingham.

So, a heavy defeat, but I actually enjoyed the game, and our young players should be given huge credit for the shifts they put in. They made it fun. 

Si

All text and images copyright CreamCrackeredNature 04.07.25 

Making the Most of the Colour while I can

 Well, that was an intergalactically hot weekend. I'd been looking forward to a warm weekend, but cricket on Saturday was brutal, Sunday was grey and tropically sultry, and then Monday was so blisteringly hot that even going for a sit down by a river resulted in my phone shutting down, my kindle being too hot to touch, and my feet getting burned through my shoes. 

So long distance runs and cycle rides were out of the question. 

Instead, short walks to the library gardens or through my work campus, and see who was enjoying the sun. 

Lots of bees on the wildflowers, and also loads of tiny moths - the colourful mint moths, and another small species with the rather baffling name of the apple leaf skeletoniser moth sat on yarrow. 

The colours there are stunning, with the yellow of ladies bedstraw being the dominant hue, and I'm making the most of it while it is there. 

Si

All text and images copyright CreamCrackeredNature 01.07.25

Another Photographic Miscellania

 Well, what do I have from random small wanderings over the last few days, sometimes accompanied by tourettes tics and other weirdnesses, sometimes not.

On the wing and the fluttery department, we now have gatekeeper butterflies on the move, while in the more buzzy department, spined mason bees and masked bees. 

I hope you are all enjoying what you can see around you. 

Si

All text and images copyright CreamCrackeredNature 26.06.25

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