Category Archives: Flora/Fauna

May 27 2017
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Daily Post, Flora/Fauna

Watching the deer watching me

Friday 26th May 2017, 12.40pm (day 2,101)

Deer on Tarn Crag, 26/5/17

Dropping down from Sergeant Man to Tarn Crag, in Easdale in the Lake District, I saw ahead a small herd of young deer, about three hundred yards ahead. I stopped to get the camera out. They stopped and looked at me for a while; I mean, look at this picture, they clearly know I’m there. They sized me up. I sized them up. Got a few shots. Then off they went, to do whatever they do during the daytime, and I carried on my way. Everyone was satisfied with the transaction I think.

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May 23 2017
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Daily Post, Flora/Fauna

Cave spider

Monday 22nd May 2017, 10.20am (day 2,097)

Cave spider, 22/5/17

As has happened before, an otherwise dull day at home was photographically enlivened by visiting the cave spiders in the shed. Meta menardi is about the largest species of spider you will find in Great Britain and we have at least four of them happily living out their lives downstairs. I love the little hairs on its legs. But, OK, I probably wouldn’t want one scampering over my face or anything.

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May 21 2017
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Daily Post, Flora/Fauna

Audrey II

Saturday 20th May 2017, 11.45am (day 2,095)

Audrey II artichokes, 20/5/17

Purple globe artichokes on the shelf of the grocery? Or possibly Audrey II from Little Shop of Horrors? Seeing as these materialised in exactly the same spot as the aliens from the planet Kohl Rabi, I suspect the latter, and that in Valley Organics lies, in fact, a gateway to an alien micro-dimension.

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May 16 2017
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Daily Post, Flora/Fauna

Don’t mess with the cygnets

Monday 15th May 2017, 11.30am (day 2,090)

Swan and cygnets, 15/5/17

This swan ain’t having anyone mess with its brood of cygnets this year. The coot high-tails it out of there under the frosty stare of the big white mother with the orange beak. Well, I probably would too.

This is full-on urban nature — taken in the centre of London, Hyde Park specifically.

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May 12 2017
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Daily Post, Flora/Fauna

Breakfast bounty

Thursday 11th May 2017, 9.25am (day 2,086)

Crows feeding, 11/5/17

This old guy walks down our street at pretty much the same time every day and I know is the one who leaves these crusts out on the wall for the birds every day. And most days the bounty is accepted (see this shot for example). Maybe the crows, rooks, jackdaws, whatever they are, see him as some kind of divine benefactor.

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May 09 2017
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Daily Post, Flora/Fauna

Humph the Heron (maybe)

Monday 8th May 2017, 7.50am (day 2,083)

Humph the heron, 8/5/17

Impossible to be sure whether this is the same heron that has (possibly) had a few appearances on this blog over the last 18 months — including this one for instance. Comparing the photos I think this one may be a different, and younger, one. To me it looks a bit like a very thin person who has just been reluctantly dipped in a swimming pool and is now standing by the side of the water, shivering, knock-kneed and wrapped in a grey bathrobe. But it was a sunny spot to dry out this morning, either way,

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May 07 2017
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Daily Post, Flora/Fauna

Preparing pepper soup

Saturday 6th May 2017, 2.00pm (day 2,081)

Preparing peppers, 6/5/17

There’s a very well known photograph of a pepper by Edward Weston — here it is — but he was a guy who had the time and commitment to spend days photographing this one thing and invest it with mystical qualities. I was just making soup. This is why I’ll never be a pro photographer. But I still like peppers as objects, the way they’re not as soft as they initially look they might be (like tomatoes) and inside they have these weird landscapes of seed and flesh. And the soup was nice too.

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Apr 24 2017
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Daily Post, Flora/Fauna

Free food (spring season)

Monday 24th April 2017, 2.10pm (day 2,069)

Wild garlic, 24/4/17

Wild garlic — the spring version of free food. (Blackberries are the autumn bounty.)

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Apr 19 2017
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Daily Post, Flora/Fauna

Cemetery chicken

Tuesday 18th April 2017, 1.50pm (day 2,063)

Cemetery chicken, 18/4/17

Visited Haworth today, mainly to get out of the house on this week off work. Haworth gives good cemetery; it also appears to have a flock of (apparently) feral chickens which occupy the same evolutionary niche as pigeons do in other similar places. So, a chicken in a cemetery then. Why not? It pleases the tourists.

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Apr 11 2017
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Daily Post, Flora/Fauna

Definitely on its second life

Tuesday 11th April 2017, 4.45pm (day 2,056)

Wounded pigeon, 11/4/17

I can see no explanation for the burst of feathers on the neck of this pigeon than it has recently had an extremely close encounter with some kind of ballistic missile — a piece of shot, an air rifle pellet — not unlike (in pigeon terms) one of those stories where a WW1 trenches veteran got his cigarette case taken neatly out but he survived. Or Steve Buscemi’s character in Fargo (if you’ve seen it, you know). I apologise to the paid-up members of the Society Avoiding Cruelty to Pigeons on behalf of the perpetrator, but I didn’t do it, honestly, I’m just documenting.

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