Another Beautiful Newark Pictorial

More pictures from the locality! Seen while running, cycling, walking, and mooching.

Boundary Road Blackbird

Buddleia bee

Blackbird again

Speckled wood, Clay Lane

Gatekeeper, Clay Lane

Female common darter, Beacon Hill Park

Very pale sort of bumble

Tree bumblebee on lavender

Small tortoiseshell, Sconce Park

Barely alive smooth newt found in some brickwork

About as good as my new phone will take of a bee

Speckled wood by the River Devon

Nestling in the lavender

Newark Nature Around and About

Feels like I've been barely inside all day, I've been parkrunning, walking and cycling, discarding my jacket and letting the sun hit my skin, taking the edge off the occasional northerly chill in the air. The hedgerows are busy with restless orange tips; small whites and large whites are on the wing and proving to be equally difficult to photograph.

Blooms are shining in the sun, hawthorn blossom is everywhere. I'm allowed to have ice creams in the market square, and listen to Radio 4 plays while on the move - that makes me sound old. I didn't think about work, and enjoyed my tea at Rumbles on the Sconce.

A simple day, but a greatly pleasurable one.

Fly on a buttercup

Sickly red tailed bumblebee

Tree bumblebee on a white bluebell

The perfect buttercup

Unknown bee drinking nectar

Twenty plume moth in my kitchen

All the Bees in the World

Unlike birds, bees and bumblebees are a far better photo opp for the cash strapped naturalist with only a mobile phone camera. Some bees are obliging, and will happily sit on a flower for a while allowing themselves to be photgraphed from all angles, while others are nervous, sensitive to human presence and barely settle for a second.

As with butterflies, the trick is to get as close as you can, as quietly as you can, and don't let your shadow fall on the insect, that seems to scare them more than anything. But, be prepared to be frustrated. A lot.

I'm no expert in identifying bumblebees, but I think the dark bee below may be a field cuckoo bumblebee male, which is a more uncommon specimen of these big buzzers!

First up, a honey bee of some kind

Field cuckoo bumblebee, male, I think

Magnficent garden bumblebee queen

Her Majesty

Tree bumblebee

Fabulous detail in this garden bumblebee shot

The Feisty Thrushes of Kings Mill Hospital

It is strange where animals set up home.

Hospitals are not places anyone would ever want to be, despite the efforts of the staff, and my mum has been suffering a while there now, watching the other patients come and go. We have tried to keep her spirits up, but it's hard.

Luckily, we found distractions today, in the shape of a pair of birds who have found a hospital a grand place to live.

I had already had an enlivening afternoon, because the hirundids have arrived in earnest on the water at Sutton in Ashfield reservoir. At the hospital end, the black silhouette of swallows are carving up the air into strips of molecule thickness, their powerful flight easy to admire.

But at the sailing club, it is the antics of the small, more fluttery, sand martins that really thrill. Standing on the slipway, they flash by in chains of two or three at water level no more than two metres away, before they execute a dazzling spiral turn, and come back the other way an arm's length above your head, little forked tails twisting in the air, wings beating.

But the real stars live in the hospital grounds, and have been entertaining the staff for years.

In this atrium at Kings Mill hospital, live a pair of thrushes. A solitary pair, in an area half the size of a football pitch.

Kings Mill. One of the thrushes is just visible on the "ladder" formation at left, near the bottom

 

 At times both will sit on the ladder formations on the side of the hospital wings, eyeing their empire. At others, one will perch on a gantry lower down, while the other feeds amongst the mosses on the lower roof you can see below. Their regular nesting site is at ground level.

They spend most of the time on lookout. And then when required they protect this space like flying tigers.

An inquisitive carrion crow swept into the space, perhaps looking out for food, perhaps just seeking the warmth the hospital must radiate out in abundance. Within seconds one, then the other, of the thrushes were on it, mobbing it clear out of the sky, back out over the building, into the wild unprotected space outside.

Mallards too, are no match for these ferocious passerines. Any passing green headed drakes are soon seen off with some fearsome flapping and calls.

And they are right to protect their space. It is warm, it has food in abundance, and no ground predators can get in, and any aerial invaders are seen easily, and early. These birds have earned the admiration of the hospital staff, and they certainly earned mine. 

And cheered up my mother, just enough.

Copyright Cream Crackered Nature

Bees, Butterflies and my own Paris - Roubaix

No hospital visit today, so took advantage of the nice weather to relax, drink tea in various places, and not be made to feel nauseous by my stepfather's rickety smelly Peugeot 205 or the chemical stench of hospital.

This morning I headed off for Sconce Park and the fun little Rumbles cafe project. I took my tea outside and investigated the flower bed.

All sorts of goodies were present. Ranging up from tiny flies, through big buzzy bumblebees, to butterflies, there was a lot of life to take in amidst the colourful blooms. Potentially the most interesting, and the most impossible to photograph, was a large ginger bumblebee I took to be a carder bee. The all black specimen I have no idea about at all, in fact bumblebees are a very weak area for me. Hopefully readers of this blog will have an answer.

Small tortoiseshell at Sconce Park

Peacock showing wonderful subtle colouring and tonal changes in the eyespots

Bumblebee that matches the flower perfectly

Perhaps a non bumblebee species?

All black bumblebee

 After an enjoyable sojourn watching the famous cobbled Paris - Roubaix cycle race, I headed out for my own 15 mile bike odyssey, ostensibly to have a look at Cotham FLash to see if any yellow wagtails or wheatears have arrived, but really just for the love of being outside on a nice day. 

Unlucky! 

Cotham Flash paddocks was entirely devoid of bird life, and a little nearer Hawton, I had a great view of a malicious buzzard that watched me struggle to get my little field glasses out, and then flew off the moment I had done so. It would have been killing itself laughing when it was said field glasses fall out of my pocket, and smash themselves to bits on the road.

Not expensive ones, and there may be a spare pare, but an annoyance. THis prompted me to put some speed on, and head to Farndon to off road cycle back along the river, swooping past the peacocks and small tortoiseshells and occasional small white, and wondering where all the brimstones are all of a sudden.

The sun was low and shining bright. People were out walking the dog, cycling, sitting in beer gardens. It was just a lovely afternoon.

Sutton in Ashfield Reservoir Sandwiches

Have had cause to spend time at Kings Mill Hospital, and while Mum eats in peace, we are kicked out to chomp down on our sandwiches elsewhere.

So, we have spent pleasant times by Sutton in Ashfield Reservoir, enjoying the singing (and inevitable these days) chiff chaffs; the antics of the swans, mallards and cutely tame great tits; the vigorous sexual habits of tufted ducks; a great crested grebe courship dance.

Best of all, we had a good chance to compare brown rats and water voles, and seeing my first swallows of 2014 - a flock of 20 that suddenly arrived to skim the waters for food.

Water vole

Water vole gets scared by mobile phone wielding hospital visitor

Handsome, always, male pochards

Loch Ness pochard

Swan makes nest alterations

The Cemetery Changes Again

Daffodils are over. Squill gone. And now blue bells and forget me not colour the low ground in shades of blue.
And in the air, small white and speckled wood have taken flight. Yet still no orange tips.

Energing bluebells

Forget me not

Cowslips on Sustrans 64

Fresh out of the packet Speckled Wood

Coots and Moorhens. Some Birds are an Island

A very slow run today, after a fast 5km yesterday, with the prime intention of photographing some of the fascinating little "island" platform nests the coots and moorhens have built. The results are below, all pictures as ever taken with a mobile phone camera.

The weather was cold and grey; having the sugar factory here means we're all used to Sulphur Dioxide fogs and orange skies. No butterflies on the wing today, and definitely no hirundines yet. Still there were plenty of things to see; sporty mallards, the first spring cowslips, the "tseeeping" blue tits in the trees, and everywhere there was a tree of any kind, the sound of singing chiff chaffs.

Coot on a nest

Moorhen nest, the moorhen in question had just vacated

Hissing greylag goose next to Balderton Lake

Cowslip

A bower of sorts on Clay Lane

Hopeless Lunar Photography

They make it look so easy on the Sky at Night, or BBC Stargazing. You get your telescope, point it at the Moon or Jupiter, and then reach for your phone. You turn on the camera, hold it up to the eyepiece, tap the screen to focus and away you go! Beautiful lunar photographs instantly result.

Only, it isn't really like that. At all.

Although I do have a cumbersome (and living with my parents) 6 inch reflector, clear skies with a bright moon the other night had me deploying my 20-60x60 spotter scope. Designed for birdwatching, it only has a small tripod, but sat on top of a wheelie bin, you can get some quite acceptable lunar views. Although the moon was all but full, I enjoyed looking at obvious landmarks; the dark floored craters Grimaldi and Plato, the ray craters Tycho and Copernicus, and the brilliant small crater Aristarchus, the brightest spot on the moon.

The Bay of Rainbows (Sinus Iridium to the posh) is also a fascinating sight not too far from Plato. It really does have the look of a proper terran coastline, a deeply curbed bay with highlands behind it, like a lunar greek island resort.

The problem starts when I try and photograph any of this. I feel like I have to sneak up on the eyepiece so the moon doesn't run away, holding my breath all the while, such is the complete difficulty of getting the camera lens onto the eyepiece, and then onto the moon. The slightest shake of the hand makes the moon disappear out of view, and it's difficult enough to get in the bloody view in the first place.

It is so damn fiddly. The most steady handed of brain surgeons would struggle to line the moon up with the camera...you have to follow this tell tale trail of optical effects - back to front - in order to get the moon into shot. You then have to tap screen to focus, activate the shutter, and wait for the picture to be taken for what seems like an age, as the slightest tremor sends to the moon skittering off screen again, and you howl in frustration, and wake your neighbours up.

But, eventually, I got some results.

A bit of moon

Another bit of moon being attacked by a red thing

UFOs!!!!

A Multitude of Images from Newark Spring

Sconce Park orchard blossoming

Hawthorn in Excelsis

Pancake Peacock

The buzz from these trees was incredible

What flavour of primrose do you like?

Cemetery primrose

All shapes, all shades

Squirrel

Gorgeous small tortoiseshell near Northgate Station

The days may be warm, the nights have been cold and foggy