Tuesday 17th March 2026, 11.35am (day 5,318)
This handsome creature trotted over as soon as it saw me and virtually demanded that I do its close ups. Who am I to refuse such an offer?
Please get my best side
Being 42
Life, one day at a time
Category Archives: Flora/Fauna
Having a doze
Thursday 12th March 2026, 11.45am (day 5,313)
This is, pretty much, the attitude I affected for most of the day. The weather was grim, and if it counted as ‘nice weather for ducks’, well, he’s doing his best to ignore it.
Shedding
Thursday 5th March 2026, 1.20pm (day 5,306)
This ladybird first turned up on Wednesday in my home office and might have made that day’s shot — I got a reasonable one of it sitting by the Mac — had the cock-up at the football not happened. It then hitched a ride downstairs on a tea mug; I noticed it miments before it would have got bunged in the dishwasher, so saved its little ass from an unpleasanr death and left it sitting in one of our kitchen’s grimier corners.
24 hours later I saw it again: surely the same one, as it had barely moved. Still sluggish from waking up after the winter, I guessed — except then it sort of wriggled a bit and dumped this crust of old carapace onto, as it happens, the side my plastic lunch box. At this point I went and got the camera. And captured what might be a look of slight disdain: ‘now that stupid thing has gone I can grow a bit more and get back to terrorising aphids’. Fine by me: who wants greenfly in the house anyway. Have a good spring. mate.
Dead in the water
Wednesday 11th February 2026, 11.35am (day 5,284)
I don’t think the police will be called for this one, although somewhere there may well be a small person distraught over the loss of their soulmate and demanding major investigations. To those who want to know, then, this morning it was in the Hebden Water, just upstream from the weir by the White Lion. If retrieved and given some tumble dryer attention there might even be a reunion.
Dove and car park
Sunday 8th February 2026, 9.10am (day 5,281)
Last day in Dubai. Taking a picture of attendees at the course I’ve been teaching on while here (undepicted…) there was a frisson of excitement as I pulled out my ‘vintage’ compact camera, as if usage of such things is simply anachronistic in 2026. I have tried taking photos on the phone, though, and it just doesn’t work as well when it comes to zoom and focus. I doubt this pic could possibly have been taken on a phone, not the combination of detail in the foreground and the soft-focus of the background, not from the distance at which I was standing, anyway. And it’s that combination that I like here. When this camera finally does die — and it won’t be long, I predict — I will try to get another one. And another, until we’re all so anachronistic that we’re not here any more.
Dubai Creek
Thursday 5th February 2026, 3.10pm (day 5,278)
Welcome back to Dubai, for my third trip here after 2019 and last year. Purely for work, well, except today when I had a day off thanks to teaching all of the weekend that is to come. Dubai Creek is why the city is here, being the inlet of the Persian Gulf around which the original settlement was founded. These days it’s just another part of the big shopping mall that the city has become, albeit with cuter buildings and some cats. Oh yes, and lots of seagulls.
The holy temple of Ganesh-with-Pigeon
Saturday 31st January 2026, 1.55pm (day 5,273)
The Hindu religion seems quite into its animalistic deities and idols, so I am sure that Ganesh and all his colleagues are quite happy that this superbly kitsch temple facade in Walthamstow has clearly become home to a number of pigeons.
First flowers
Thursday 22nd January 2026, 2.15pm (day 5,264)
The snowdrops always come first. Earlier than usual? Perhaps, but not excessively so, and they are sitting in a nice, sheltered spot. This is not some rural woodland though; in fact these are on the uni campus, just next to the Roscoe building.
Hugo, portrait
Tuesday 20th January 2026, 5.30pm (day 5,262)
A fourth appearance for Hugo, and this portrait sums up his general character as well as anything. Since we last saw him I believe he has lost a couple of crucial parts of his anatomy (y’know) but it doesn’t seem to have changed him much.
The sparrow keeps warm
Saturday 3rd January 2026, 11.05am (day 5,245)
Along the stone retaining wall of Hebden Bridge railway station grow substantial patches of moss, and this little fellow was hopping along and burrowing into every little bit of it this morning, in search of food, unconcerned by my relatively nearby presence and far more bothered about staying warm on a cold winter’s day. Look how fluffed up its feathers are. I hope it sees out the winter.
Being 42 