Monday, April 23, 2007
Blog News & Important things
# Local area & patch reviews
# Photographs
# A blog / diary
# Recording database of bugs & birds
# Anything else that I can think of.
Anyone who has kindly linked to this blog will be informed of the new URL when the site is up and running (oooh, a week or two)...
Bye de bye,
The Cardinal.
Thursday, April 19, 2007
Oh I got out to Stithy.
At last, I finally made it out into a world beyond the front door and was surprised to find not much had changed since I last peeped out (I expected cars to be hovering by now).
The other inane highlights included: A rather large Bumble Bee trying to fly up my arm, finding the biggest Earth Worm I have seen this year and discovering a small red beetle which I can’t identify.
Saturday, April 14, 2007
Sunday, April 8, 2007
Krites Vs The Cardinal
I will be out more next week, just for one hour jaunts up and down the local patches to see what has decided to retire from the winter slumber and munch on some fresh greenery. And next week also includes my long awaited ‘beetle trapping’ sessions, so who knows what surprises I may encounter when emptying the traps (most probably just some dreary wolf spiders and a slightly miffed slug).
Then we have the ‘surprise Pupae’ jars, which contain mysterious Pupae connected to even more mystical flying beasts that I have yet to identify in the Pupae state (again, probably just a blue bottle…).
The moment it hatches, I shall photograph and release it unto the world (and let you know just what it is currently transforming inside the plastic container). The whole process should take 10 days, probably less as the current detainee may have been in the Pupa stage for some time already.
Actually, it may even be some beetle pupa…
Or… I may even wake up one morning to find the container ripped to shreds and an interstellar bounty hunter called Ug wanting to know where the Krite is…
Wednesday, April 4, 2007
Orange beetles and Peacocks
Ah, the blog hasn’t been updated in something resembling a week! What has happened to me I hear you cry? Well, I have been out and about, but it seems that any interesting birdy sightings have fallen thin on the ground. As the sunshine pulls me away from the computer and into pastures new, my binoculars stay tucked away in my trousers and the camera comes out to photograph what insect life is foraging around in the undergrowth.
Butterflies are now making more of an appearance and today I was presented with a couple of young Speckled Woods. Yesterday I managed to photograph a Peacock (see below); the only reason I managed to photograph this one is probably due to the knackered appearance of his wings (assuming he’s getting on a bit in butterfly years/had a rough life)…
The other ‘ooh la la’ moment was finding an Orange Ladybird (Halyzia 16-guttata). The numbers of these beetles has been climbing steadily all over
I can hear a Chiffchaff…