I've been round to my folks' place this afternoon, where I was slightly annoyed that Christmas stuff prevented me from getting out for a photography walk. So, I headed out back, to find that the many apples left over from my stepfather's apple crumble making and sundry giveaways, had been badly mauled by unknown assailants.
Who was responsible. Not this little blue tit, minding its own business in a nearby tree.
Sneaky inspection of the tree at a distance revealed the culprits at work.
I then moved in, to get some close up shots of the perpetrators, to send off to "Crimewatch" for Martin Bayfield to have on his wall of shame.
If you know any of these black clad villains, do no approach, and call the police immediately.
Si
All text and images copyright CreamCrackeredNature 18.12.15
Today's run was about heading out to a field near Coddington to see if I could find the large flocks of redwings and fieldfares I've seen in previous years up there. They are on my "must photograph" list.
However, the search for winter thrushes seemed to be rather pointless when I found evidence that is actually spring.
Go back to bed!
I'm not surprised. My mother told me they have snowdrops poking up in the garden, and they are in the cemetery too. But not in flower like these. They are about 4 weeks early, by my rough reckoning.
The whole run was unseasonable. It was warm as anything for a start, I could have easily run in a T shirt and running shorts if it wasn't for the warm rain that was falling. Bet that left some Saharan sand on car bonnets! I suspect if the sun had made an appearance, red admirals would have been flying about.
Si
All text and images copyright CreamCrackeredNature 17.12.15
I was working hard on my latest tricky culinary project - heating a tin of soup without burning myself - when I noticed this little character on the kitchen wall.
Not the best macro shot there's ever been
Initially I got rather excited and wondered if it might be some sort of steodata type false widow spider. But looking at this and shots I got on my mobile phone I'm now thinking this is a young garden orb spider come in out of the cold that isn't.
It was so warm today that when I went running I had sweat dripping off me like I was a neon clad Niagara Falls.
I'm feeling quite sneaky and proud of myself, sorting out thrifty crafty Christmas gifts from my photographs. Going to visit the photo shop in town tomorrow to get a few blown up to A4 or hopefully larger, and framed. Just hope it works out.
Si
All text and images copyright CreamCrackeredNature 16.12.15
It's hard not to watch the launch of British astronaut Tim Peake into space without a complete sense of awe, and without feeling that everything else after it is completely mundane.
The splendidly retro and reliable technology of the Soyuz spacecraft and launch vehicle - both rooted in the 1960s, check out the way the rocket looks like it has flares on - successfully did their job on taking our plucky astronaut up to the International Space Station.
But what struck me while watching the launch, was the fact that space is still a place for the test pilot and the ultra clever scientist, the strong and the smart. The much admired Commander Mike Hadfield, the Marlboro Man looking guitar strummer of a previous mission, said as much during the BBC's launch coverage.
But for us to expand out from our overcrowded, polluted home, Space can't remain the preserve of the elites with big brains, or big wallets to pay for a trip on Virgin Galactic, forever. Sooner or later, we will need it to be a home for everyone.
Space will need shelf stackers, warehouse runners, toilet cleaners and plumbers to build a society up there. Cosmonaut Commander Bigballzikov won't want to waste his time tending the Martian base flowerbeds, he'll be wanting the municipal gardener to do it for him. Captain Goldstein won't want to take out the garbage, and Doctor Fortescue-Blyth will blanch at idea of emptying the zero gravity toilet. There will be a need for bus drivers, teachers, speeder bike traffic wardens and folk to run the corner shop.
It won't be me of course, too old even now, as are indeed most people who are already born on this planet. But someday the adverts of Blade Runner, enticing the masses of Earth to the off world colonies, will be a reality. One day, there will be opportunities to be astronauts for all of us.
I was a scientist you know, once upon a time, a time so ancient it now feels like I had to dodge dinosaurs when making my way up to campus.
I had wanted to become and astronomer, so did all the usual things like visit Patrick Moore at his house and do all science A-Levels. But then I realised that I was never going to be good enough at maths and wasn't very much better at physics.
I did however enjoy chemistry, especially the theory side of things. I loved drawing molecules, and indeed inventing molecules; designing elegant organic reactions with the little fish-hook arrows to represent electrophilic attack, and marking great broad swathes of pencil to indicate covalent bonding.
The practicals I found a little more difficult. I was as clumsy as hell which meant it took me a while to construct my apparatus, and then when I had finally got my glassware and chemicals in order, I was so obsessive compulsive about the accuracy of my results that often I would end up not getting any.
But at school level these were only minor hiccups; my teachers were really encouraging and chemistry not being a popular subject, I got offers from all my chosen universities, including St Catharine's College at Cambridge.
Too bad I missed my required 3As by a mile.
Still I had a place elsewhere, and was really looking forward to going away. But not to study. By now, I had misgivings about science. I worried it wouldn't satisfy me intellectually. And I thought it would be too hard.
I was right. The theory I still enjoyed, no problems there. I even found myself able to solve second order differential equations, the bane of my maths career. But the lab classes...my god. Two three hour sessions a week, having to build huge Frankensteinian arrangements of tubes and bottles, and then fill them with some rather nasty chemicals without knocking the whole thing over.
By the time I'd built the apparatus, the class was over, and I'd have to stay late to get even the tiniest bit of actual you know chemistry done, while the supervising PhD students glared at me while their pints sat in the pumps in the bar.
I'd break things. I'd spill things. Once I sloshed a largish amount of ether all over my workbench, and spent the next half hour getting more and more insensible as the fashionable party anaesthetic of Victorian partygoers collected at face level. If my bunsen burner had been on I'd have gone up like the Hindenburg.
In the second year, it would have been 12 hours of lab a week. In the third, 18. I would have ended up more contaminated than Chernobyl. The delights of working with benzene and cyanide awaited.
It was time to get out. A classicist I became. But I've never lost my love of science. It's amazing when it works, and to demonstrate this, enjoy Sir Martin Poliakoff making a chemical barking dog!
Sometimes you go out and just don't want to pressure yourself with the expectation of running a long way, or craning your neck treeward to take photographs of things that probably won't come out.
Sometimes all you want to do is just get out there and go walking, listening to the radio, and in general, just mooching with no direction in mind.
If there is something to see, then snap it! But don't go looking for it until your eyes pop out of your head.
If it's there, you'll know.
Si
All text and images copyright CreamCrackeredNature 12.12.15
Until now, I've always felt that my bird photography has to be done away from home, on little expeditions to the park, or the local lakes.
Well, on a relentlessly grey and wet day, I decided "hang that!" and just decided to take my camera out onto the communal driveway and garden and see what I could find.
Straightaway the "zups" and "zeeps" announced the arrival of a flock of long tailed tits, and it all went on from there. Nothing exotic, but I got reasonable captures. Sadly, with the light being what it was, and the birds up high in the sycamores, it was hard to get really crisp shots - they've all come out a bit noisy.
Still, I will keep practicing and I hope you enjoy what I've got.
Si
All text and images copyright CreamCrackeredNature 10.12.15
Hello long tailed tit!
Hanging around way up high
Proud pose
Goldcrest at the top of the tree
Blackbird
I always love there is a Talking Heads soing that seems to go "Pica pica!"
