Emporer moth
By Peter Byles
Saturday, 24 December 2011
More winter flowers
On Thursday, at Brownslade Burrows, there were at least three more species flowering: Common Centaury Centaurium erythraea, Common Storksbill Erodium cicutarium and Autumn Hawkbit Leontodon autumnalis.
Friday, 23 December 2011
Saturday, 17 December 2011
knapweed
This knapweed bud was thinking about opening, however the cold will slow it down so I will keep an eye on it to see if it dares!
Sunday, 11 December 2011
Wild flowers in winter
As we enter the period of lowest daylight hours, it is interesting to see so many wild species of plant producing flowers. Over the past couple of days I have noticed several species in flower, including those in the image above - clock wise from the top: Cow Parsley Anthriscus sylvestris, Red Campion Silene dioica, Corn Marigold Chrysanthemum segetum, Alexanders Smyrnium olusatrum, Creeping Buttercup Ranunculus repens, Common Figwort Scrophularia nodosa and Wood Avens Geum urbanum.
Other flowers noted were Dandelion Taraxacum agg., Pineappleweed Matricaria discoidea, Groundsel Senecio vulgaris, Daisy Bellis perennis, Winter heliotrope Petasites fragrans, Scentless Mayweed Tripleurospermum inodorum, Smooth Hawk's-beard Crepis capillaris, Selfheal Prunella vulgaris, Hogweed Heracleum sphondylium, Herb Robert Geranium robertianum, Wood Dock Rumex sanguineum and Sharp-leaved Fluellen Kickxia elatine.
It would be interesting to compile a list of plants seen flowering during these shortest days of the year, perhaps between now and the end of January - if other observers would be prepared to contribute via this blog?
Foxy would a hunting go...
I was in my study talking on the phone when our three chickens started up a mass alarm and I noticed a fox grappling with one of them in our small low walled front garden.
Moving pretty swiftly for one of my generous proportions, I ran downstairs and in a couple of bounds was grabbing a handy marrowbone knuckle-end, en route to the scene of the crime. The fox still intent on its meal had taken shelter in a small bramble tangle and in this direction I hurled the bone. This seemed to come as a bit of a shock to "Charlie" who left at speed scaling the wall, out and away.
Looking somewhat dishevelled, the hen ("Sage") was in a semi comatose state but so far as I could see without any obvious wounds. This particular brown hen, an ex "free range" critter had arrived with another, both lacking a good deal of the amount of feathers that one would normally associate with fowl that had lived a pastoral existence.
My third hen comes from a long line of home hatched and rather elegant poultry, gone so feral that they have all eschewed the safety of the hen hut for a roost in a thick tangle of honeysuckle.
It is the last of its line, and over the years its forebears have disappeared with only a trail of a few fine feathers leaving a clue to their likely fate. It is, perhaps understandably, due to the trauma of seeing multiple of its relations disappear on a one way journey accompanied by "Charlie", a bit neurotic, not quite part of the gang.
There is still a hungry fox out there, so I tried to round my remaining covey up and put them in the hen house. I managed to catch Onion the unmolested doppelganger of Sage and they are both now safely incarcerated for their own protection. Our remaining hen which I was unable to catch remains wild and free like its ill fated predecessors, now uniquely so. I suppose for the time being at least, she is “the last of the unique-hens”!
Moving pretty swiftly for one of my generous proportions, I ran downstairs and in a couple of bounds was grabbing a handy marrowbone knuckle-end, en route to the scene of the crime. The fox still intent on its meal had taken shelter in a small bramble tangle and in this direction I hurled the bone. This seemed to come as a bit of a shock to "Charlie" who left at speed scaling the wall, out and away.
Looking somewhat dishevelled, the hen ("Sage") was in a semi comatose state but so far as I could see without any obvious wounds. This particular brown hen, an ex "free range" critter had arrived with another, both lacking a good deal of the amount of feathers that one would normally associate with fowl that had lived a pastoral existence.
My third hen comes from a long line of home hatched and rather elegant poultry, gone so feral that they have all eschewed the safety of the hen hut for a roost in a thick tangle of honeysuckle.
It is the last of its line, and over the years its forebears have disappeared with only a trail of a few fine feathers leaving a clue to their likely fate. It is, perhaps understandably, due to the trauma of seeing multiple of its relations disappear on a one way journey accompanied by "Charlie", a bit neurotic, not quite part of the gang.
There is still a hungry fox out there, so I tried to round my remaining covey up and put them in the hen house. I managed to catch Onion the unmolested doppelganger of Sage and they are both now safely incarcerated for their own protection. Our remaining hen which I was unable to catch remains wild and free like its ill fated predecessors, now uniquely so. I suppose for the time being at least, she is “the last of the unique-hens”!
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