A Long, Wet, Walk

Been a day of two halves, yawn yawn cliche cliche, today. I had a busy old morning, getting my hair cropped, buying a pair of proper, if not terribly sexy, walking shorts and visiting the library. The sun was out, and I watched the bumblebees going mad for the geraniums in the park there.

The lavender is just coming into flower and so the bees will be mad for that shortly. In the afternoon, I decided to head out walking and for reasons I ought to be kicking myself for, reasoned that as I'm still not running it had better be a long one. It ended up being ten plus miles, in unceasing rain, across the Grange Road fields to Hawton, and hence to Farndon and Willow Holt.

I couldn't resist trying out my shorts - Peter Storm ones from Millets - and it was just as well I did because they got very wet, yet dried really quickly as soon as the rain eased. What didn't perform so well were my Karrimor walking trainers. The rain itself wasn't the problem, rather, walking through long grass and barley and getting rivers of water running down my legs onto my shoes. They were saturated in seconds, and consequently I did most of the walk with soaked feet.

 There's a lesson to be learnt there, if I ever start walking serious distances. Still, I was happy, listening and laughing out loud to a Radio 4 programme about the horror rivalry between Hammer and Amicus films, taking snaps of wildflowers, and just generally putting one foot in front of the other. Very squelchy feet.

 I regret to say my other piece of non-erotic wear, my yellow "Kag in a Bag" also had to be deployed when the rain got too heavy. But no-one saw, so I don't care!

 I hope some of you had better weather!

Si

2nd flight tortoiseshells are out, I read. This is what became of the 1st.

Geranium love

Onto the next one

Inflight close up

A tree bumblebee joins the frenzy

Under the laburnum

Poppy joy

Saturation

In a Farndon garden

Forget me nots in the church

Willow holt

Rustic seat

Campion on the river bank

Inside a foxglove

Paddles away

The beautiful Farndon buttercup meadows

Swans

The Butterflies Return to Life

The butterflies really haven't had a great start to the year with the spring having been so cool and windy. I've really not seen many at all, and today'd walking and cycling - been out for three hours plus today - has really reinforced how badly orange tips in particular have faired this spring. Their numbers seem to be way down on the last couple of years. So it was nice to catch a few on the wing today, on what has been a glorious day. The ambient temperature has not been very high, but the sun has been very strong and the sky sufficiently clear to see to the edge of the universe. Speckled woods are the most numerous at the moment, with these brown and white spotted flutterers in evidence virtually anywhere there are a few trees. Large whites patrol hedgerows, the nervous small heath was out and about on Beacon Hill Park and doing its usual thing of flying away the moment a cameraphone was deployed within five metres. No skippers on the park yet though, although their favourite scabious flowers are out. I even saw my first red admiral of the year, a beautiful freshly unwrapped one on the reserve. When the buddleias along the river flower, then they will swarm in to drink deep of the purple flowers. I await the painted lady migration with interest. The feeling is it may be a strong year for them. Enjoy the sun! Si

Foxgloves

Speckled wood on the cycle path

I'm flagging up a mallard

Buttercups paint the field gold

The dark and light of life

So much valerian around this year

Speckled wood again

Scabious, much beloved of burnet moths and skippers

Honey bee

Tree bumble on geranium

Am I a Fake or Not?

I was reading up on some tips for nature bloggers today, and one of the things that was stressed by a UK nature writer in a piece for The Guardian, was the importance of not faking anything about your experiences in the environment.

I felt this was certainly a very good point, and one that made me rather paranoid. Have I ever faked my emotions about what I've seen, or perhaps exaggerated for literary effect? And if so, has it been spotted by my readers?

I was so worried, as I did a 23km cycle this evening, I found myself asking the wildlife I encountered en route whether they thought I was nothing but a big faker.

"CACKLE" cried the crows circling over the sweetly putrescent rubbish tip.

"Prrreeeep" said the swallows softly as they escaped my bicycle along the Sustrans 64.

"CHEEEEESE!!!!" yelled a sulphurous yellowhammer on a telegraph wire.

"Crrreeeaaaaak" groaned my bike as I tried to do a Wiggins and pour on the power.

None of this was terribly helpful to me. I can only leave you with a few pictures, and a reassurance that my intent is, mainly, honourable.

Si

All images and text copyright CreamCrackeredNature 06.06.15

There was a busy worker early bumble in the garden

Not sure what we have here

The long legged writer

Sun soaked poppies

Colourdrunk After Work

A long shift today, as ever blue skies and light winds are timed by the gods to coincide with my working hours. No egrets did I see at the window connecting me with the outside world, nor buzzards, swallows or swifts.

No, it was empty blue sky in tiny short doses, interspersed with hours of artificial lights and flickering screens, suffused in crackly ionised air with an ozonal whiff.

Believe me, on a day like this it is such a joy to escape from the inside into the outside, to head home for the day.

But after all that fluorescent tube bathing, I was badly in need of some real colour. The Polish garden next door is not mine to use, obviously, so I headed straight for my folks' place and into their garden, to listen to the great tits and blackbirds sing, and take in the colours.

I haven't a clue what most of these flowers are, I'm sure some of you will. It was the first sight of blooming, beautiful water iris that prompted me to take a few photographs, in order to capture these colours forever as the sun sank lazily behind the bramley apple tree.

Si

All text and images copyright CreamCrackeredNature 03.06.15

Making the Most of the Outside While I Still Can

I've been out walking for another couple of hours this afternoon, across the Grange Road fields to Hawton village along the drainage ditch. I was hoping to see a kingfisher or egret here, but no joy. I did flush a woodcock however, which hurtled out of the barley and crashed through a hedge with a cry of alarm.

Having not seen any for what feels like an age, it was good to see a few butterflies on the wing today, a very faded small tortoiseshell and a relentlessly fluttering small white both struggling to deal with a fierce wind. But at last it was a warm wind, veering rather more to the south and when the sun was out it was quite pleasant.

What wasn't so good to see that some of the fly tips I reported a fair while back have still not been cleared, while more rubbish has been dropped. A supermarket carrier full of empty cans really ignored me, a driver had clearly dumped that out of their car when there were bins at a corner shop about a hundred metres away. Senseless!

Something else that is happening out and about is building. A new relief road to the A1 has been started, hopefully flying over the Sustrans 64, and so many bits of land are having houses crammed onto them. Some are hilarious, a row of three cramped cottages at the back of the old Wing Tavern have so little natural light, and seemingly no gardens either, it's going to be like living in a cave. Another house near the back entrance to Beacon Hill Reserve seems to be being built in a crater, and other large scale developments that have sprung up around Newark have all the charm and quality of 1970s apartment blocks in East Berlin.

Soon the new expansion of Newark south of the town will start colonising the fields like barnacles. I wonder how many of my running routes will be blocked off?

Si

Text and Images Copyright CreamCrackeredNature 01.06.15

Gardeners have been busy in the cemetery

Grange Road fields

Devon Pasture

Devon Meadow

Tainted blossom

Canada flotilla

Bee explores its own little sun

Another bee feeds off ragwort

Ooh look! Another ghost sign

This was at the library and I found it rather eerie

A Bee takes the Pain Away

The sun was shining when I awoke this morning, and given that the forecast for most of the day was terrible, I decided to get out straightaway.

This involved a rather painful hauling out of bed process - the muscle strains across my stomach and in my inner thighs means having them sort of "hanging there" unsupported is very sore, and any early morning coughing or sneezing is painful too.

Clambering over the bicycle based obstacle course at the bottom of the stairs is also a tricky little operation.

But, as I got out of the flat and inspected the colour saturated display of Polish flowers next door, it became worth it straightaway, because at last my neighbour's blooms have attracted pollinators. My first worker red-tailed bumblebee of the season was working away on cornflower type flower, and I could see that other bees were busy on other plants too. Fabulous. Made me feel much better.

Hopefully butterflies will appear when the weather warms up.

Indeed plenty of bees were in evidence as I walked along Clay Lane, and up the hill to the Beacon Hill reserve, despite the gathering storm clouds that have threatened a downpour all day without delivering and a pretty wild wind. The library park was all-a-buzzing even though the number one bee attractor, the heather, is not yet in bloom.

It still smells glorious though, I can't help but crush leaves between my fingers and smell them, no matter the season.

Si

All text and images copyright CreamCrackeredNature 31.05.15

Red0tailed, or possibly early, worker bumblebee on Polish flower

Horse amid the buttercups

The bower on Clay Lane

Beacon Hill Reserve nursery

I see a lot of this at the moment, I'm going to keep calling it vetch until someone tells me I'm a very silly man

White tailed bumble sheltering from the rain

Magnificent red tailed queen  just hanging around