Category Archives: Flora/Fauna

Poison dart frog

Tuesday 18th November 2025, 3.05pm (day 5,199)

Poison dart frog, 18/11/25

This little feller is, at most, two inches long but what does he care? In the wild these kinds of frog accumulate enough poison in their skin to kill a dozen people. But apparently they acquire it by eating certain types of ant and other insects, and when fed a different diet in captivity, the toxicity is lost. Maybe he doesn’t know. If he did, would he care? (Taken in the Manchester Museum’s vivarium, where saw some of his cousins before, in 2014.)

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Between platforms

Tuesday 11th November 2025, 12.15pm (day 5,192)

Platforms 4 and 5 of Manchester Victoria station, to be precise (making this, incidentally, the 900th shot taken in Manchester). The sign is meaningless in context, but the pigeon seems to be wilfully defying it anyway. On the left (4), the 12:15 to Redcar Central and on the right, the 12:15 to Blackburn, both punctual. But was I on my way into work late, or coming home early?

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Spotted near town

Wednesday 29th October 2025, 1.40pm (day 5,179)

Hurst Road deer, 29/10/25

Yes guys — you’ve been spotted. Then again with those bright buttocks you might as well paint a target on your behinds: I have relatives who will get itchy trigger fingers just looking at this photo.

This is not the nearest to the centre of Hebden Bridge that I’ve ever seen deer — that award is still held by the one spotted at the railway station in April 2019 — but let’s say it’s the second-closest: 15 minutes’ walk from the market square, at most, and with houses just yards away.

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Melancholy

Saturday 25th October 2025, 12.45pm (day 5,175)

Depressed dog, 25/10/25

“Hmmmff. Another day of having my needs ignored. Look at that couple over there. Eating sausages for heaven’s sake. Meanwhile, I just get another cold floor and the leash. And they keep expecting me to fetch their bloody balls for them as well.”

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The courtyard

Tuesday 21st October 2025, 12 noon (day 5,171)

EWB courtyard, 21/10/25

The courtyard within it continues to be the only truly nice thing about the Ellen Wilkinson Building, my place of work for the last 20 years and, more or less, three months. Will I miss it when I finally do manage to leave? Probably not. But it can look nice, at different times of the year.

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Ladybird on Guinness

Sunday 12th October 2025, 2.10pm (day 5,162)

Ladybird on Guinness, 12/10/25

Far too nice a day to stay in, something that the ladybirds had also decided — there are plenty of them around at the moment, probably getting in their last greenfly before it becomes too cold and they die or hibernate or do whatever it is they do over the winter. My pint of Guinness didn’t have any hanging around on, or in, it but maybe this one was just resting on the cool plastic for a while. Is ladybird.guinness.football a ‘What3Words’ waiting to be used?

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Heron in the Tame

Saturday 11th October 2025, 12.30pm (day 5,161)

Stalybridge heron, 11/10/25

I know it’s not long since I did a heron but they are good looking creatures with an agreeable habit of staying still for the camera. And this one isn’t the usual stamping ground in Hebden Bridge, but rather Stalybridge, the water being that of the River Tame.

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Campus spider

Tuesday 7th October 2025, 9.10am (day 5,157)

Campus spider, 7/10/25

In actuality I will estimate this creature’s body to have been about the size of my thumbnail, so you see it here at around three times life size. Impressive web work, particularly as this resides not in some hidden cranny but beside the A34 in Manchester, on the side of the annex to the Engineering Building (sorry, the Dame Nancy Rothwell Building [B]). Spiders have been around for more than 200 million years, and, I am sure, are among the many species which will outlive us, however things pan out in a future time that I will not see.

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Flower in the rain

Wednesday 1st October 2025, 6.20pm (day 5,151)

Flower in rain, 1/10/25

October 2025 began without a great deal happening, at least not to me. For now I am staying in my little bubble. Maybe this shot is representative of that, somehow, but maybe it’s just a nice splash of colour.

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Pigeon parade

Monday 22nd September 2025, 5.15pm (day 5,142)

Pigeons by Thames, 22/9/25

“Who’s this guy then?”

“No idea. Another tourist with a thing for pigeons I suppose. Like London’s the only place that has them.”

“Pervert. Perhaps if I scowl at him he’ll go away.”

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