Coming to the end of Pretties Season

 September ends with peculiar 20 degree days and 20 degree nights, which frankly is rather superior to the insane summer we had but is still totally unseasonable. 

Most wildflowers have given up the ghost for the year and the beautiful June scenes in the library nature reserves, but there's still plenty of colour to be had in Sconce Park, and my buddleia gets regular dawn and dusk visits from that most fabulous of flutterers, the hummingbird hawk moth. 

I've also had many visits from the mighty beast that is the hornet mimic hoverfly, and where ivy is in bloom there is the gleaming yellow and orange ivy cellophane bees. Not many butterflies around, and frankly apart from red admirals, painted ladies and small whites, that has been the story of the summer. 

Small tortoiseshells? Not round here mate. 

So, as I type with a hot swollen hand from a mosquito bite, let me show you what I've seen these lasr few days. 

Si 

All text and images copyright CreamCrackeredNature 01.10.26 

Bright Beasties, Vivid Wildflowers

 Aside from the hummingbird hawk moth, my most interesting visitor to my garden buddleia has been the absolute unit that is the hornet mimic hoverfly. 

A gold black and yellow chunk, they are either impossible to photograph, or happy to sit there scoffing away while you get the shots. These, like the hummies, are a recently arrived species that are steadily moving north with the warming climate. 

Even as we hit the autumnal equinox, there's still plenty of colour and life out there on the warmer days, and with ivy coming into flower, the ivy cellophane bees have appeared with their gleaming gold hoops on the abdomen and manic nature. My sister found a colony of them on a client's lawn, and they were an incredible sight. 

Plenty of eristialis family drone flies are also around, and also honey bees and a few bumblebees too. Butterfly-wise, red admirals and painted ladies are still around. Small tortoieshells however have had a terrible year, I've seen maybe a couple flutter by in passing. 

I hope you are all finding plenty of things to take joy in. 

Si

All text and images copyright CreamCrackeredNature 22.09.26

Hummingbirdie, Hornety Creature, and Other Finds

 The buddleia in my flint stone postage stamp garden that I cut back to two feet high back in April, has rather predictably grown back to jungle proportions. But along with this, it's lilac flowers have been attracting some rather special guests. 

Chief among these is a hummingbird hawk moth. I like to think of it as being the same moth each time, a moth that enjoys my company and the floral spread I have laid on for it, but these moths have been so common in the UK this summer, there could have been different ones. 

I've also had hornet mimic hoverflies, equally spectacular creatures and the largest of our hoverfly species in the UK. And among the usual honey bees, drone flies and bumbles, I've even had the occasional ivy cellophane bee drop in, presumably wondering why the heck I don't have any actual ivy here. 

I'll probably throw in some non-garden shots, because hey, why not? 

Si 

All text and images copyright CreamCrackeredNature 10.09.26 

A Red Admiral - You'd Better Salute!

 No more cellulitis, but training for a half marathon on the 16th August and trying to play cricket at the same time have given me the indignity of a pulled muscle in my left buttock, and the hot weather has been very enervating for both human and wildlife alike. And that's before we (won't) talk about the debilitating bouts of IBS. 

I have kept on doing "my thing", whatever that may be, and a lot of that has involved getting a tea from Greggs or some other quality outlet, and visiting Sconce Park or the library gardens to read, clear my head. 

I have upgraded my garden with the pollinator stepladder of delight, and the various wild buddleias that have sprung out of the ground have flowered to attract more buzzers and flutterers. I did have a star visitor though, a perfect red admiral butterfly who was delighted to present itself for my irritating mobile phone camera. 

I hope you are all keeping well and enjoying the world around you, scorched and brown though it is. 

Si

All text and images copyright CreamCrackeredNature 31.07.26 

Recent Butterfly Finds amidst Illness.

 Well, been a interesting couple of weeks. 

Last week, I noticed that I had a very area on my shin, and another in my inner thigh, which by Tuesday morning had turned into a more or less shin sized hot swollen area with a rash in the middle of it, plus a hot rash on my thigh. 

A hurried snap of the afflicted area was dispatched to my GP surgery with a description of the symptoms, and sure enough, later in the afternoon they texted me the confirmation of what I had already suspected. 

I had got a cellulitis infection. 

Now, normally this doesn't sound like very much, but it can lead to sepsis if you don't get on top of it quickly with antibiotics. Not fancying hospitalisation, amputation or death, I was a good boy and cycled off from work to get my prescription like a Temu Tadej Pogacar. 

Having a very hot swollen leg infection in 34C temperatures isn't really ideal, but I didn't want to get cabin fever so I did take a couple of short walks outside for a cup of tea on the market square or at the library gardens. Plenty of flutterers around at the moment - red admirals, peacocks, various whites, holly blues and the inevitable painted ladies this summer. So I was able to get a few nice photos! 

Back at work this week, and only a faint trace of rash left, so all good! 

Si 

All text and images copyright CreamCrackeredNature 15.07.26 

Return to Bat and Ball Action

 After a fair few weeks of having been dropped, I was recalled to the side last weekend to take on Riverside CC, who were late substitutes are our scheduled league opposition dropped out. 

We wondered before the match if this was a bad idea, as they were a bunch of grown adults with rather elaborate practice drills, and when they won the toss and batted, we were thinking we were looking down the barrel at 300. 

As it turned out, they were a super bunch of lads, and although a superior standard to standard third team opposition, they were a good side for our young team to play. 

Fairly quickly it became apparent they weren't going to smash us all round the park, and our young - in the main - bowlers did a good job of containing them with some early wickets taken, including a casual one handed catch by yours truly that I only took because I thought it was a no-ball. Probably. 

With our side short of bowling, I got an early go second change with the expectation that I would bowl a full 7 over stint, which I haven't done in years. And you know, it went well for me - bowled one of their senior bats, had another caught at mid off - with a couple of wides thrown in when the ball slipped over my spinning finger. 

The last over where bowling over the wicket to a left hander was a total disaster, where I lost my rhythym completely and got spanked rather hard. 

We bowled them out for 167, with a surprise final wicket being taken by our quondam wicket keeper. 

Break time, and time for me to do some nature photography, because hey it's what I do, and reflect upon the red kite that swept majestically over the ground, the first one I've seen at Kelham Road. 

Now to batting, and as ever, I opened the...umpiring...while better bats went out there to take on the Riverside bowlers. After an early disaster when one of our openers nicked off. 

There followed a fantastic 100 stand by the aforementioned sometime keeper, and a returning senior bat who sadly has had injury problems, on one occasion being cuased by our club captain's dog running him over during a Sunday game I captained. He made batting look so easy, but after he politely retired at 50, it became a lot harder for our young bats, and we finished about 30 runs short, despite me maintaining my infinite average with a score of 6 not out. 

More importantly, this was the first game on our front ground for three years after major flooding problems, and that was the most important thing. 

Si 

All text and images copyright CreamCrackeredNature 03.07.26 

A Holly Blue and other Insects

 After the blistering heatwave, we've had a slightly more pleasant week so far, with me enjoying time in the library gardens, running slowly and stiffly, and playing cricket. 

The latter causing the former. 

My best encounter in this time was with a well behaved holly blue butterfly I came across in the currently very colourful library gardens. It has been so species rich in there this year, in an area about the size of two tennis courts. 

I love to sit there with a cup of tea and read, take photographs, do some sketching either "live" as it were, or from photos later, I've dabbled with waltercolour, wax pastel and soft pastel, with varying degrees of semi-competence. 

Been playing cricket again too after a long time, and golly my body hates me for it. It doesn't go well with half marathon training! 

Si

All text and images copyright CreamCrackeredNature 01.07.26 

Small Skippers Close the Butterfly Gap

 We have now emerged from the June butterfly gap, with the cooler weather of most of the month so far replaced with this savagely hot weather of the last few days. 

For those weeks, there was barely a butterfly to be seen, but now we are seeing the high summer species like meadow brown and ringlet in the air, and in the library gardens, a very fresh and confiding small skipper feeding off a cultivated campion. 

I spend a lot of time in the library gardens, with a tea or a cold drink, and love to take in the vivid colours while photographing the myriad of insect species that populate it. I sit and read, or sketch, and just take it all in. 

When you have Tourette's, you have to enoy the peaceful and colourful moments. 

Si 

All text and images copyright 25.06.26 

Bee Orchids Return to Campus

 They've been missing for a couple of years, but today, in the less than glamorous surroundings of a workplace smoking shed, that I came across some beautiful bee orchids in flower. 

I had been tipped off, and if it wasn't for my guide who took me there, I wouldn't have seen them in the longish grass. 

Relying on a species of bee you don't actually find in Britain to fall for their cunning apine ruse, they are self pollinating in this country, and are not uncommon. But still, I love finding them, after all they are an uncommon sight to me! 

It's been a day of intermittent heavy showers, with not much sun around until evening, but in a gap in the downpours, I came across a real bee, and a glittering swollen thighed flower beetle feeding of musk mallow that grows in a scrubby little spot next to a footpath. 

I wonder what a sunnier day will bring, as always. 

Si 

All text and images copyright CreamCrackeredNature 10.06.26 

Bumblebee Three Different Ways

 Struggling today with my various Tourettes and ASD associated symptoms - IBS, flaring eczema, rampant ADHD and all that stuff. 

We've been having more "Four seasons in one day" weather, and it was a brighter interlude that I got a decent capture of a buff tailed bumblebee feeding off bramble. 

In one of my fits of inspiration this evening, I decided to try and do a watercolour of it. I really am no kind of painter whatsoever, and I've never found a way of doing it that works. For this attempt, I decided to outline the subject matter in fineliner pen, before filling in with watercolours from my travel paint set. 

Not sure this has worked. 

In a flying flap of creativity, I then doubled down and did a soft pastel version which I am much more happy with, happy in the sense of not wanting to throw it on a bonfire in the morning. 

I suppose this is neurodiversity in manic action, I guess. I've started creating work relating to my Tourettes, but golly lolly gee, I won't be posting that here. 

Si 

All text and images copyright CreamCrackeredNature 04.06.26 

Painted Ladies all over the Place!

 For those of you who do so, monitoring the feeds of nature lovers on social media will soon show you what an amazing spring it has been for painted lady butterflies. 

Small tortoiseshells - not a sausage. Painted ladies - a who hog roast.

The library gardens nature reserve has them feeding off the meadow clary, they flutter by at sconce park, pale orange in the save sunshine we've been having, and they are all over our work campus, where dogwood seems to be their food plant of choice. 

I remember a late summer pre-pandemic - gosh how that defines so many things - when we had a huge late summer migration of painted ladies and I saw a fair few around, but not as many as this. 

I wonder where they have come from. Is there an El Nino connection or something else of an arcane nature? 

Si

All text and images copyright CreamCrackeredNature 27.05.26