Garden - Groundhogs

The Second Summer in 2 days yesterday when, not exactly to my liking, the mercury reached +43°C in direct sunlight outside of Slight Return II and hardly a breath of wind, roll on Winter! Although there was little, or nothing seen during the first hour around sunrise

the loom of light

was attractive enough as it peaked through the trees on the

Golf Course.

and while in that area it was decided to take a longer look than usual at

Hugh's New Vegetable Patch
which is looking most healthy in all respects.
 GARDEN

My garden is all overgrown and the weeds are creeping up on my home,
Grass has grown over two foot high and the trees are blocking out the sky.
French windows won't open any more from the moss that's grown outside the door,
Hundred birds are nesting in the trees, looks like a wild-life sanctuary.
Good job we decided to linger as fate played a beauty sending a

HOBBY

directly overhead which is the first we have ever recorded in August.
The Irrigation Pond held little save 'bad news' that the

COOT FAMILY

has been reduced from the original c4 chicks to just a single.
Moving on to the Gravel Pit, there was a shortage of Birds but this pristine

SMALL TORTOISESHELL BUTTERFLY
certainly made up for that,

 

along with a small 'charm' of feeding 
GOLDFINCH
It only needs the Current Bun to come out and there are the

Butterflies to go with it, first at Merritown Heath being

SMALL HEATH

strangely in tandem and markings suggest a male and female?

This white-winged juvenile

CARRION CROW
has been knocking about for a few days now, but never reaching the lens.

Today, in direct sunlight it was thought worth a try to walk past it
even at a range of just 10 feet, it worked so Click, Click, Click!
Pushing my luck even further walking back to Strange for the 

small camera and then returning

we also managed this short video clip.

That's when a couple of

CLOUDED YELLOW BUTTERFLIES

turned up adding to the day total.

WHEATEAR

(with Meadow Pipit)

has also never been recorded here during any August, but the most

obvious spot for them, the large Solar Panel Compound, has been visited
daily over the past week in the hope of securing such a record.

We found a minimum of c5 there along with this

most obliging

COMMON BUZZARD

so just continued snapping away.
 But I'm not going to cut a single blade of grass, my garden will look just like the distant past,
Before the days of agricultural land, before the time when pebbles turned to sand.
When I leave this house I'm going to stay, I'm forsaking my comforts to live another way,
Get my clothes from heaps, my food from bins, 
my water from ponds and have tramps for my friends.

Last thing, we took a look at the
CRAB APPLE TREES

which are also full of ripening fruit.

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The Click Song - Miriam Makeba

In association with the current, unseasonable foul weather there has been a serious dearth in the number of Moths taken from our 5 Traps, but fear not! This has simply been a roll reversal from the Spring when we were overborne and only in the last couple of days have we completed the identification and cataloguing of all these Insects via numerous photographs. So, for those who do not simply say "oh no not Moths again" the following might be seen as something of a bonus?

From that Period

 SMALL RIVULET

 and at the time other

Firsts for the Year included

 PURPLE CLAY

and

SMALL ANGLE SHADES
More recently we took this fine specimen of

 SQUARE-SPOT RUSTIC

 which because of its abundance has formally been overlooked as a 

contender for publication.

Micro Moths have also failed to make the cut more recently

so from days gone by we show

 LESSER WAX MOTH

and finally, as far as the traps are concerned, a

CLICK BEETLE

On our way back to Slight II we encountered this

COLLARED DOVE

Regular Readers may remember this

 rather smart adult male

WHINCHAT
found in the Solar Panel Compound during the spring, was it he or another
responsible for our next and most exciting find of the day.

Very nearly passed off as yet another juvenile
Stonechat

we did, as ever, check the first image for quality

and noted a supercilium (eyebrow) which is absent on the considered species.

A juvenile
WHINCHAT
was the corrected ID which was considered indicative of the

First Breeding Record
on our Recording Area!

ROE DEER

taking shelter under the Solar Panels

and the first return of

SMOOTH SNAKE

.

for many a day.

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Comfortably Numb - Pink Floyd

With wet and at times extremely windy weather preventing anything close to meaningful 'field-work', we were pleased to have retained the images of a Brief Encounter some days ago. Comfortably sat inside Slight Return II with my usual mid-day sarnie and cup of 'extra-strong' Douwe Egberts, and feeling a little Numb, something was noticed out of the corner of my eye.

When I was a child I caught a fleeting glimpse,

Out of the corner of my eye.

I turned to look but it was gone,

I cannot put my finger on it now

The child has grown, the dream has gone

For I have become

COMFORTABLY NUMB Link

 Continue to listen, the track which follows
'Shine On You Crazy Diamond'
is tribute to the late Syd Barrett former lead guitarist and song writer with Floyd.
THE 'CRAZY DIAMOND'

 Well not quite like that in this case but a GREAT SONG nonetheless!

What looked to be a confiding juvenile, female

SPARROWHAWK

rater than flying off

simply walked across the Tennis Court

before becoming
ENTANGLED
 Genesis
(dedicated to Paul and Annie)
in the netting.

Bit of an evolution to free such a bird

which quickly became subdued

and happily lent itself to an

Extensive Photo Call.

This was something of an occasion

as we have never had a Sparrowhawk 'in the hand' before.

After this it was released back to the wild.

and right away from tradition, what Insects there were 

in the traps come as a finale today.

SMALL EMERALD

was the First of the Year

and as part of a small influx of c6 migrant

GEM

c3 of these were secured today.

Only as novelty value, this

KNOT GRASS

appeared to have been of a 'pale morph'?

Last but not leas and away from Moths was this

FIELD GRASSHOPPER

Rock 'n' Roll Trivia  

The name Pink Floyd is derived from 

2 of the bands revered US Black Blues Artists, 

the mighty Pink Anderson and cohort Floyd Council.

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