Category Archives: Flora/Fauna

Nov 28 2020
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Daily Post, Flora/Fauna

Gull portrait

Friday 27th November 2020, 11.05am (day 3,382)

Gull portrait, 27/11/20

The grey gloom of life is matched by the weather and none of these conditions make for optimal photography. This day last year I was having a very fine day out in Indonesia (and photographing butterflies 5,000 feet up); two years ago I’d just come back from Germany. No similar excursions look feasible for quite some time. The local birdlife will have to sustain me today. I do quite like the correspondence between its little red legs and the chimney pots in the background.

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Nov 23 2020
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Daily Post, Flora/Fauna

Keeping warm indoors

Monday 23rd November 2020, 1.10pm (day 3,378)

Indoor butterfly, 23/11/20

I didn’t leave the house all day today. There didn’t really seem a great deal of point. This tortoiseshell butterfly has also moved in, it seems. I guess a domestic house is like an old people’s home for butterflies; the winter isn’t biting yet but I doubt these will last long outside, regardless. It’s welcome to inhabit our living room. It gave me something to photograph today, at least.

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Nov 23 2020
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Daily Post, Flora/Fauna

Zoomorph

Sunday 22nd November 2020, 12.05pm (day 3,377)

Zoomorph, 22/11/20

If to “anthropomorphosise” is to assign human characteristics to animals, is there a word for assigning animal characteristics to plants? For this tree is clearly doing a good impression of something or other, maybe a lizard, with not only that obvious eye and snout but a crest of moss. I’m inventing (perhaps) a word for it — zoomorph. Noun: a plant that takes on the shape of an animal.

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Nov 18 2020
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Daily Post, Flora/Fauna

Wood fungus

Tuesday 17th November 2020, 2.25pm (day 3,372)

Wood fungus, 17/11/29.

Another deeply unexciting day. At the moment, this fungus probably has more of a social life than the whole human population of the UK. I chose this shot because I like the stately swelling of the grey trunk to either side; but the fungus has made it inside, and looks there to stay.

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Nov 14 2020
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Daily Post, Flora/Fauna

Duckwatching

Friday 13th November 2020, 3.25pm (day 3,368)

Ducks, 13/11/20

As government policy and public fear continue to ravage our lives and economies, I speculate as to what kind of future awaits, and ahead there’s an old-man version of me that just wanders through our empty town each afternoon to spend time watching the ducks. They are peaceful, good-looking creatures, they clearly have some basic society, with obvious couples, occasional spats and arguments, and an ability to understand and make use of the dynamics of water flow for their own personal edification. This duck seems proud of her own drake and watches the other two parade past in much the same way as might a haughty woman sat outside a café. To my eyes, anyway. There is little else to look at right now.

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Nov 11 2020
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Daily Post, Flora/Fauna

Winter flowering cherry

Wednesday 11th November 2020, 12 noon (day 3,366)

Winter flowering cherry, 11/11/20

There is nothing going on at the moment. AT ALL. Pointing the camera at flowers is about all that is available. The winter flowering cherry, as a species, makes at least its second appearance on the blog. If nothing else continues to not happen, it might be back soon enough.

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Nov 08 2020
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Daily Post, Flora/Fauna

Opportunist

Sunday 8th November 2020, 11.55am (day 3,363)

Gutter plant, 8/11/20

Not much to do other than look at plants again, and to save having a second ‘autumn colours in the mist’ shot in a row (though the woods looked good once more), let me instead document the reason why one of our gutters was overflowing onto the front step below. A garden cane with a fork taped to the end provided a solution. I bet you’re excited now… There went weekend no. 1 of House Arrest 2.0.

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Nov 08 2020
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Daily Post, Flora/Fauna

In the woods

Saturday 7th November 2020, 1.50pm (day 3,362)

In the woods, 7/11/20

Who doesn’t love the colours in autumn, a last hurrah before the greyness of winter. I like the remaining green on this shot and the sinuous branch, with its two duck-heads.

Not pictured on this shot: vast numbers of people. The woods of Hardcastle Crags were heaving today. Because, if you take away other normal weekend entertainments, people will do what they must in order to stay physically and mentally healthy, which is to get out of the house to wherever is available. Thus, congregating closer together than they would otherwise have done, and defeating the object of this latest stupid, mindless, arbitrary attempt at social control.

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Nov 05 2020
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Daily Post, Flora/Fauna

Maris the heron

Thursday 5th November 2020, 12.50pm (day 3,360)

Maris the heron, 5/11/20

Let us ignore the rest of the world and indulge in some Hebden heron-spotting. I have no idea how long these creatures live, but I would expect a few years at least would be normal for a bird that size, and so I think this is the same bird as pictured on 8/5/17. The particularly sharp neck markings are one clue, but to be honest, the main one is those slightly comical knock-knees. Both photos show this. This is not the rather more butch-looking, and generally bigger, one that I had christened Humph (see 25/5/16, 23/1/17 for example).

So this one needs a name of its own. And I’m going to call it “Maris Crane”. You’ve seen Frasier, right?

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Oct 14 2020
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Daily Post, Flora/Fauna

Ladybird (possibly evil)

Wednesday 14th October 2020, 10.50am (day 3,338)

Station ladybird, 14/10/20

Clare tells me there are both good and evil ladybirds — the latter being invasive species, of which this specimen may be an example. Whatever, it seemed to develop an attachment to me: after I took this photo of it at the railway station it then hitched a ride on my mug of tea and by now will be living it up in Manchester — or whatever the ladybird equivalent is.

And no, I do not know what the problem is with removing the label. Perhaps I should find out one day.

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