The Abandoned Blackbird Nests

I've had a very busy few days wandering around, and yes! hooray! running again, albeit very slowly.

We've had three unexpectedly warm days in a row, and although today has been humid and occasionally slightly damp, it has still been pleasant. The bumblebees have been out in abundance, especially the tree bumblebees in my two nests in the roof. The nest above my front door in particular is very busy, and from dawn till dusk the bees are buzzing around in a ginger cloud.

They are very fond of the aphid sap found on the underside of the holly and privet leaves.

I've been pottering in the folks' back garden tonight, admiring the new botanical additions. At one point I saw the naughty cat from next door climb guiltily down from one of the cloud trees, so my bird senses started tingling; that cat is an expert bird botherer.

Sure enough, there was a new nest in one of the trees, and devil cat had been having a look for blackbirds to harass. However, on a hand based inspection, there was a single blue speckled egg within, as cold as a stone. Such a beautiful thing, but devoid of life.

On a hunch, I checked the old pergola nest, and that too had a single cold blackbird egg in it. The cat had obviously driven both birds - or was it the same one each time? - away. The owners had put a bell on it, but it has been taken off, seemingly.

I love cats, I miss our family cats terribly, but I wish owners would bell their collars to protect bird life.

Soapbox away, enjoy the pictures!

Si

All images and text copyright CreamCrackeredNature 18.06.15

Tree bumblebee has heavy saddlebags

The strong oily smell of ceonothus seems to be a big attractor

Elderflower

Fungi on the Sonce

Geranium party!

Beautiful cinnabar moth, my first of the year

Bit out of focus, now we have a scabious party

Waiting to bat in the nets. When I did, I was dismal

Errr, pink campion

Solitary bee on library geranium

Another geranium bee

Railway ox eye daisies

Bee was a-visiting

Some writer called "Bronte Emily". Who?

New in the garden

Twilight bee out back

The Common Tern over the Pond

Today has been a glorious day, bright, sunny, and with the wind quietened down again it was a good opportunity to head around town and see what would be about.

 Certainly plenty of bees were in evidence. For a start I now have TWO tree bumblebee nests in the eaves of my flat, one in the corner, one over the font door. So glad about this, but sadly plenty of other folk here would be having kittens about having these harmless creatures move in.

My friend's foxgloves were also irresistible, but not to tree bumbles, who don't like feeding off deep belled flowers for some reason. No, it was buff tail and white tailed bumblebees enjoying the nectar from the pretty white, purple and pink plants.

 There was action on London Road pond too. Coots and grebes were showing off their little ones, and the family of canada geese were having a good old hiss and peck at any mallard that got too close to the rapidly growing goslings. But the best sight of all was above the water rather than on it.

It was the first common tern of the year in Newark putting on a show, quartering the water, occasionally offering to do a spectacular dive but always thinking against it before resuming its search, its deeply forked tail demonstrating its "sea swallow" nickname as it used it to expertly steer in the air.

 Such a recognisable bird, its flight is so different from a black headed gull, much slimmer in profile and also having the "pulling from the shoulder" sort of wing beat a swallow has.

 I was immediately reminded of the 10 year old me, watching my first tern on a school field trip to Hunstanton, being passed the binoculars of a birdwatching teacher. That trip I found a nest of ringed plover chicks, saw fulmars on the iron red striped cliffs, and found the body of a razorbill I carried back to "Le Strange" Hotel.

 Best school trip ever.

 Si

  All text and images copyright CreamCrackeredNature 15.06.15

Sad woodpigeon with injured wing

Buzzy ceonothus today

Cross goose family

Love this stuff but no idea what it is

Coloured doors

Tree bumble at work

These tinfy flowers were very attractive to the bees

White / buff tail working too

Lovely view of a tree bumblebee

Boat looks like a happy Egyptian whale shark

In a wild planter by the locks

Native ladybird with tiny spots

The Philae Lander has Awoken!

Back in November, I wrote with sad eyes slightly shining, of how the Philae lander carried to Comet 67P by the European Space Agency Rosetta mission had finally run out of power after its landing on the comet's surface.

It had apparently settled in a dark ditch upon the surface, and was thus unable to properly recharge its batteries with its solar panels. After 60 hours of activity, the much anthropomorphised "plucky" little spacecraft finally went to sleep as its batteries dies, tweeting heroically all the while.

Here's what I wrote at the time.

But now, I read that the ESA have made contact with Philae again. As was hoped at the time - rather optimistically, I thought - the decreasing distance of the comet to the sun as it approaches perihelion has meant that the lander is now getting enough sunlight to charge its batteries and operate.

There is now the chance that we will see for the first time what happens on a comet's surface as a comet makes its closest approach to the sun, which could make for a heck of a spectacle as volatile gases erupt off the warming surface to form jets, and other material streams out to form the cometary tail.

But never mind the science, not when today's evens have given the ESA an opportunity to produce another cute cartoon!

Si

Dazzled by an Iridium Flare

I was having my usual late night potter around at midnight last night, taking a gentle late night tour of the sky.

I've been neglecting my astronomy I know, I keep saying! There just aren't enough hours in the day or night to do everything, and I have to rest occasionally. Using binoculars makes my eyes tire very quickly at night these days. But luckily, the sky has more than enough to keep the naked eye interested.

So it proved last night. Approaching low from the south, rising up to meet the bright orange star Arcturus, was a faint satellite. I could see however that it was brightening up, so I figured out quickly what it was.

The Iridium Satellites

These are communications spacecraft who's highly reflective panels direct sunlight onto a narrow strip of the Earth below as the satellite passes about 900km up. I've seen them before, the brightest ones reaching about the same brightness as Venus, around -4 for a few seconds before the sun-satellite angle becomes unfavourable for the observer and the Iridium craft fades away again.

This one, however, became almost as bright as a half moon. It cast shadows, had a halo lighting up a quarter of the sky, and it all but hurt my eyes to look at.  It drowned out the stars for a moment, and it almost felt like a celestial god was shining a torch on my face, it was dazzling.

Outside of the moon, this was the brightest object I've ever seen in the night sky.

A twitter contact down south thought it might have been a flash of lightning.

It was actually Iridium 32, and it had reached a magnitude of a shade under -8.

You can use the "Heavens Above" website to predict views for Iridium Flares - and also things like International Space Station passes. This is the pass I observed last night. If you enter your location, it will predict and locate bright Iridium Flares for you.

They really are spectacular.

Si

All text copyright CreamCrackeredNature 12.06.15

Under Bat Attack

I've been a bit more mobile today, and with the better weather I've had a couple of jaunts out. This morning - ish - I had a trot along the Grange Road fields managing to jog a few steps now and then.

The sun was out, and so was a second flight peacock which made up for the fact I was expecting the hardened ground to be alive with new small tortoiseshells. Not yet however, and I'm still thinking that 2015 is about three weeks behind last year in terms of 'emergences'. Small whites were about too, a single small white spot on each wing indicating that they were spring flight males.

In the afternoon I ran very slowly up to Beacon Hill nature reserve, and added more small whites and a common blue to the day's butterfly list. With it being sunny, the small heaths were skittering around at low level, but I managed to get reasonable shots of one specimen. It must have been on valium, allowing me to get within a metre of it.

The evenings have been clear and chilly, and the ambient twilight at 10pm or so when I'm typically heading out or pottering around with the bins or other domestic excitements is a prime time for bat watching. Either my flat or the church hall next door has pipistrelles living in the roof, and a couple or nights ago, a couple of them put on a mighty display for me.

I have no idea how pipistrelles mate, or fight, or anything else about their mating habits. What was clear that one of the bats was chasing the other around in the limited space on my driveway, executing insanely tight turns before swooping low across the hedge and back up and around. There's barely a moth to be found anywhere and I've no idea if they are finding enough to eat up there, if that is what they were up to.

Every so often, their flight path brought them towards me, and I'd feel a thrill pass down my spine as the bats - in all, barely larger than a sparrow - would fly straight at my face, before presumably their echo location system alerted them to the presence of a clodhopping human, and they'd rise up over my head.

I felt like I was being strafed!

I remember showing my sister bats when she was very young, and her loving them. I wonder how she would have enjoyed seeing these?

Next week, I might be able to show her.

Si

All text and images copyright CreamCrackeredNature 10.06.15

Small white on the remnants of oilseed rape

Can you spot the Dog Ness Monster>

Tree Bumble at DEvon Pasture

Coot and chick, London Road pond

Adult is still feeding the chick

End of Clay Lane now impassable for the summer

Pair of small whites

Damn that focus!

Damn it again!

I think this was a vestal or gypsy cuckoo

Best snap I got of the small heath

My First Bee Rescue!

My life has fallen into a routine of walking, futurelearn study, and writing. Sometimes I get a cycling session in, when the wind isn't too strong which it has been virtually since March. I take photographs for you, my eyes are never shut and I'm always looking for the interesting or unusual out of the corner of my eye.

I have spent a lot of time training the corner of my eye, you know. And today it came in very handy.

I'd already had an enjoyable walk along the cycle path, through the forgotten reserve and then across the the Sconce for a cup of tea, although the sun was elusive again and the northerly wind a chill one. I had just arrived home and was walking up the drive, when that sensitive optical vertex of mine noticed something sitting on one of the Polish flowers next door.

I leant down and turned my full ocular apparatus on it. It was a pretty worker bumblebee, bright furry yellow of thorax and red of tail, identifying it, I think, as an early bumblebee. It was clearly a tired, chilled bee, absolutely motionless upon the bloom.

"Wait there little bee!" I said, and hustled inside to boil a kettle. I got a spoon and some sugar, poured the hot water upon it and got downstairs without spilling most of it.

The bee was still where I left it, although weak it was able to sit on my finger tip when I moved it under its belly, indeed, it proved to be rather difficult to get off my finger onto the spoon, but eventually I managed to get the bee onto the edge of the sticky, sweet water.

I really have no idea, frankly, if it was drinking or not.

I then reasoned it might be easier for the bee to drink on the ground, and poured some of the sugar water onto the drive, where surface tension held it like a blob of quicksilver. The bee moved in and began, I think, to drink. 

I left it alone then.

I have no idea whether it survived or not, as I have been out studying. But I hope I did the right thing, and if I wasn't able to help, maybe I'll get it right next time.

Si

All text and images copyright CreamCrackeredNature 08.06.15

Contrast between normal and eclipsing mallard

Dog roses are now in bloom

Tree bumblebee enjoying some dandelion

Another tree bumblebee on this attractive plant by the railway line

More new blossom in the forgotten reserve

Fly grazed mini-pony

Hill path in the Sconce Park

Sconce blossom

A different view of Devon Pasture

Healthy early bee

Rescue bee trying to feed

Hopefully, I helped