Friday 7th March 2014, 12.45pm (day 925)
As growing on our window sill at home, getting itself established before we introduce it into the big, wide, adolescent world that lies outside.
Being 42
Life, one day at a time
Category Archives: Flora/Fauna
Golden Mantellas, Manchester Museum
Sunday 23rd February 2014, 11.30am (day 913)
Had to go into Manchester today. Once the errand was done, Joe and I passed some time in the Manchester Museum, which is on the university campus but which I have managed never to properly explore in the 8 years I have worked there. It’s a good natural history and anthropological museum, in fact. These frogs are native to Madagascar and critically endangered in the wild. They’re toxic, though not extremely so.
Cherry blossom (definitively)
Wednesday 19th February 2014, 11.50am (day 909)
Now I said back in December that I thought I had seen very, very early blossom on the University of Manchester campus, but it turned out to be a winter flowering cherry. However, this, definitively, is traditional, spring cherry blossom in flower on 19th February; they are in the courtyard within my office building on the campus. Well, I said it’d been a very mild winter — unlike in North America where the Great Lakes are almost fully frozen, and very unlike last year here.
Unexpected visitor
Thursday 13th February 2014, 10.00am (day 903)
How on earth we get a ladybird in our house in February, I have no idea. Despite the mildness of the winter (and it has been very mild, with barely a frost yet), the only logical explanation is it’s been inside with us all winter. It was a bit sluggish, but alive.
The Hebden Water
Tuesday 11th February 2014, 4.05pm (day 901)
The Earth orbits the Sun with a tilt to its axis and every day of each year the light falls on us all in different ways. Today at 4pm was one of those points where it shines straight down the channel of the Hebden Water as it runs below the retaining wall of Keighley Road. Nice to be in the right place at the right time to see it.
The next allotment
Sunday 19th January 2014, 2.50pm (day 878)
Glorious afternoon today, with sunlight streaming onto the allotments in late afternoon. Our neighbours (garden-wise) are much more organised than us. The green netting is evidence of that alone, but look — they have poultry. Why don’t we have poultry?
Rooks taking off
Monday 30th December 2013, 11.00am (day 858)
Birds, again, but hey. So it goes. We could have a New Year challenge, see if your count of the rooks on this photo (in flight or still in the tree) matches mine. For what it’s worth I get it to over 100, and all were circling over Hebden Bridge town centre this morning in a mildly ominous way.
Seagulls over Bloomfield Road
Sunday 29th December 2013, 3.15pm (day 857)
They came, they saw, they conquered. Blackpool FC (‘The Seasiders’) 0, Brighton & Hove Albion FC (‘The Seagulls’) 1. This picture taken from the away end at Bloomfield Road stadium, during one of longueurs which characterised the match — not a great one, it has to be said, but the right result. For the seagulls, anyway.
Feeding sparrows
Thursday 26th December 2013, 10.25am (day 854)
Christmas at the in-laws’ in Morecambe ends with this nice little scene, photographed from the front room (hence through glass, explaining the blotches of yellow light below the sparrow on the right — they are reflections).
Apple blossom (in December)
Wednesday 18th December 2013, 11.25am (day 846)
Maybe I have seen apple blossom flowering in north-west England, in December, before. But if I have, I didn’t photograph it. Well, there you go. It’s been mild…
(POSTSCRIPT: my mother, fount of knowledge on all things botanical, suggests this is probably a winter flowering cherry. So there you go. It’s still been very mild, however.)
Being 42 