Category Archives: Flora/Fauna

Feb 04 2023
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Daily Post, Flora/Fauna

In the Woody Ridge flax mill

Thursday 2nd February 2023, 2.00pm (day 4,179)

Cow in byre, 2/2/23

Curiosity, and the need to stretch my legs during a day sat working on a report, took me down the road to investigate the old flax mill that stands there, a relic of just one of many attempts to institute some kind of working cash crop economy on St Helena — doomed from the point in the 1960s when the Royal Mail decided it no longer wanted to use string to tie up its parcels and would instead rely henceforth on nylon. Now the place seems to be used as a cow byre: but the dairy industry here didn’t survive regulations on hygiene, or was it something else? Laws and practices developed for quite different contexts have never really gone down very well in this remote and distinctive place.

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Jan 29 2023
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Daily Post, Flora/Fauna

Wild bananas

Sunday 29th January 2023, 10.40am (day 4,175)

Wild bananas, 29/1/23

Let it be said that I find bananas to be possibly the most revolting of all natural foods: I really cannot stand them. If they were the only foodstuff that I had access to, I’d starve to death. Which is a shame, because bunches — literally — of them grow all over St Helena, including many in Gareth’s garden, as shown here. And I quite like their strange, purple flower/appendages, dangling down like strange alien tongues. But even after they ripen, I’m not going to eat any, I can assure you.

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Jan 29 2023
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Daily Post, Flora/Fauna

Waxbills

Saturday 28th January 2023, 12.55pm (day 4,174)

Waxbills, 28/1/23

I’m fairly certain these are juvenile common waxbills (Estrilda astrild), a member of the finch family. They don’t yet have the bright red bill that gives the species its name (as it looks like it has been dipped in sealing wax) but everything else about them matches the description, particularly the red stripe through the eye. The one on the lower branch flew off the instant I pressed the shutter, and is fluffing himself up ready to make the jump. Taken on my walk to the summit of the island, Diana’s Peak — more photos from the day can be seen on my other blog.

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Jan 23 2023
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Daily Post, Flora/Fauna

On the Jamestown sea wall

Monday 23rd January 2023, 3.50pm (day 4,169)

Jamestown crab, 23/1/23

Jamestown is one of only three places on St Helena where it is fairly easy to get down to the sea, and that is where I was standing at the end of my day’s work when I looked down and was faintly revolted when a whole sqaudron of these little black crabs scuttled out from just below me and headed for the water. They looked rather plain and black from above but I got the camera out anyway. On uploading the pictures it was pleasing to see the detail on this one, the spots, the red and the blue. Perhaps there is beauty in all things. (Except jellyfish, which really are disgusting.) This specimen can become the first of its biological order (Brachyura) to make the blog.

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Jan 07 2023
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Daily Post, Flora/Fauna

Sheep at the trough

Friday 6th January 2023, 3.15pm (day 4,152)

Feeding sheep, 6/1/23

There is just such a look of contentment on the face of this sheep, as it has a rest from its communal troughing. I guess with all those fleeces on each side it must be pretty warm and stuffy down there; no wonder they were all taking breathers now and again.

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Dec 28 2022
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Daily Post, Flora/Fauna

Cheap Bella shot

Tuesday 27th December 2022, 9.45am (day 4,142)

Bella, 27/12/22

Bella becomes the latest animal to make a definite second appearance on the blog, following her debut on Christmas Day 2015. Seven years on, little has changed about her, including this, her main tactic for persuading humans to give her food; if dogs know about the concept of a raison d’etre, the acquisition of food is Bella’s.

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Dec 19 2022
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Daily Post, Flora/Fauna

Beneath the drop zone

Sunday 18th December 2022, 4.05pm (day 4,133)

Drop zone, 18/12/22

It is known that birds are relatively intelligent creatures for their size, so as I crawl through this null time before Christmas, trying not to think about work, questions come to mind, such as — do they deliberately crap on people’s heads, or is it all an accident? This old metalwork crosses over a street in Hebden as it links two buildings, and whatever it once was, it is now prime pigeon perch; and always worth a look upwards, before any attempt to pass beneath it.

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Dec 02 2022
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Daily Post, Flora/Fauna

Swan salon

Thursday 1st December 2022, 9.40am (day 4,116)

Swan salon, 1/12/22

Beside the boating lake in Southport is clearly the place to be if you are a swan concerned about your appearance. These four were just a few of the many there who all seemed to be engaged in some kind of preening and cleaning activity, in or out of the water. But as someone with a lot of hair themselves, I know that it is tricky to keep one’s plumage tidy. It’s nice that they seem to do it as a social thing, like elderly ladies gathering in a salon.

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Nov 27 2022
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Daily Post, Flora/Fauna

Fungus field

Sunday 27th November 2022, 10.40am (day 4,112)

Fungus field, 27/11/22

I’m not confident enough to start picking and frying random fungi that I come across along the way, though I know some who will do so. These look tasty enough to me though. As pictured in the garden of the B & B, but a less gratuitous shot than yesterday evening’s.

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Nov 27 2022
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Daily Post, Flora/Fauna

Red kite

Friday 25th November 2022, 2.00pm (day 4,110)

Red kite, 25/11/22

Certainly a red kite, a species of bird that was close to becoming extinct in the UK some decades ago, but thanks to a number of programmes of reintroduction, now making a fine recovery. I caught a number of these on camera in Wales some years ago, but those were coming to an organised feeding station. This one was as wild as they come, soaring on the thermals above a road in Lincolnshire. It turned into the sunlight just as I had it in the sights.

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