Tag Archives: wildlife

Apr 23 2014
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Daily Post, Flora/Fauna

Bumblebee in big trouble

Wednesday 23rd April 2014, 9.35am (day 972)

Bumblebee and apider, 23/4/14

I know this is an essentially crap photo, with the focus all wrong, but it was a dramatic moment, at least at the micro-scale. I was trying to get a photo of this bumblebee as it buzzed around the plants by our front door, when suddenly it blundered into this web down by our old coal cellar, where the cave spiders live. Now I don’t know about you but if something one and a half times my size — and bumblebees, in insect terms, are not small — came leaping out at me with the intention of making me lunch, I think my life would flash before my eyes even if it was just an insect life. Three seconds later the bumblebee escaped, but I bet those were the longest three seconds it had ever known. I managed to get this one shot of the drama.

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Mar 16 2014
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Daily Post, Flora/Fauna

Frog spawn

Sunday 16th March 2014, 2.10pm (day 934)

Frog spawn, 16/3/14

The mill pond upstream from us, from where the flash flood claim on July 9th 2012, has now mostly silted up, but there is still life in it.

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Feb 13 2014
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Daily Post, Flora/Fauna

Unexpected visitor

Thursday 13th February 2014, 10.00am (day 903)

Ladybird, 13/2/14

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.

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Jan 19 2014
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Daily Post, Flora/Fauna, Hebden Bridge

The next allotment

Sunday 19th January 2014, 2.50pm (day 878)

Allotment, 19/1/14

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?

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Dec 30 2013
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Daily Post, Flora/Fauna

Rooks taking off

Monday 30th December 2013, 11.00am (day 858)

Rooks, 30/12/13Birds, 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.

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Dec 29 2013
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Daily Post, Flora/Fauna, Sport

Seagulls over Bloomfield Road

Sunday 29th December 2013, 3.15pm (day 857)

Seagulls, 29/12/13They 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.

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Dec 27 2013
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Daily Post, Flora/Fauna

Feeding sparrows

Thursday 26th December 2013, 10.25am (day 854)

Sparrows feeding, 26/12/13

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).

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Dec 16 2013
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Daily Post, Flora/Fauna

Parakeet in Lamorbey Park, Sidcup

Monday 16th December 2013, 3.05pm (day 844)

Parakeet, 16/12/13

This blog has featured three photos taken in this park, each on one of my biannual trips to Rose Bruford College in Sidcup, one of the University of Manchester’s collaborative partners — the park and the college grounds are all basically the same place. I like Lamorbey Park, one of those ‘nice spots’ that the world still retains.  Among its interesting and attractive birdlife are a colony of parakeets, clearly escaped pets, and unconcerned by the imminent winter despite their tropical origins. I know this is another out-of-focus shot, but the light was so dull and grey today, and in the end I was happy enough with the exotic fauna to live with the picture’s technical defects.

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Dec 15 2013
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Daily Post, Flora/Fauna

Winter berries, Keighley Road

Sunday 15th December 2013, 2.20pm (day 843)

A fairly lazy but pleasant Sunday today. There are still things growing round here, occasionally in some profusion — which I guess is a good thing if you are the kind of creature (like a bird) who still needs to forage for their meals in mid-December. And no, I can’t remember what kinds of berries these are, I know I should know but there you go….

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Dec 07 2013
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Daily Post, Flora/Fauna, Hebden Bridge

The Muscovy duck finds a space for the night

Friday 6th December 2013, 7.05pm (day 834)

Muscovy duck, 6/12/13

This Muscovy duck now lives permanently by the canal in the centre of town, opposite the Railway pub. (The wood beneath it on this photo is the gate of the dry dock.) It has been here for nearly two years now, and this is its third appearance on the blog, making it the first animal to definitively appear on here three times (as many times as my mother-in-law, I note…). According to Avian Web, the species is native to South America but is spreading through North America. It is certainly not native to the UK, or even Europe. Either it got blown a long way from home or — more likely — it is an escaped pet. It seems to have found for itself an amenable spot to retire to, either way.

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