As per, been super busy with various volunteering tasks and work at the pub. I'll just make this a brief post with some September photos.
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| Garden carpet moth on our bird of paradise plant (11th Sept) |
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| Raindrop covered hibiscus (12th Sept) |
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| Raindrops on a large white butterfly caterpillar clambering along chicken wire (12th Sept) |
My Dad and my Gramps were always very keen on keeping fish and reptiles and that sort of thing. In the past year my Dad has started this hobby up again with various beautiful fish, but more interestingly freshwater blueclaw crayfish
(Cherax quadricarinatus). These are native to Australia and apparently they are a delicacy over there. I personally wouldn't eat one, being a veggie, but they are certainly very attractive! My dad has inadvertantly managed to breed them and tells me there are 7 young ones scuttling around the tank (I don't really like to advertise, but he asked me to write that they are for sale). Cute as far as crustaceans go! He also kept a recent exoskeleton to show me, and knowing that I am now making a little collection of odonata exuviae etc, he thought it would be a good addition to my collection :)
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| Adult male (15th Sept) |
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| Juvenile |
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| Exoskeleton |
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| Underside |
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| The first one Dad got eating a fish (taken in December 2012) |
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| Little blue flower from a wild flower seed mat. Any ideas? Side view below... |
Monday 16th I braved the M25 traffic and drove up to Whipsnade Zoo. I had a wonderful day, mainly due to having my own personal tour from a very lovely friend :) They have about 1000 free roaming animals in the grounds - the mara were pretty darn cute!
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| Mummy Mara and her 2 bubbas! |
Mum and I drove down to Dungeness last weekend (21st) and purchased some new bins :) long overdue! We tested them out watching the skulking egrets and the wonderfully agile sandmartins. I never tire of watching hirundines skim the water for tiny insects, building up their weight ready for their long journey back to their winter residence. Some of my average attempts of photos are below.
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| Little egret on land |
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| Sandmartins |
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| Cormorant |
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| Grey heron |
Mid week we had some lovely sunny weather and the cosmos flowers were bloomin' pretty. I thought the pinky purple colour complemented the hazy green of the plants behind. Most of the photos I hardly edited at all and I was pretty pleased with the outcomes.
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| Cosmos at lunchtime |
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| Carder bee |
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| Bracken enjoying chewing his new toy |
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| Evening primrose |
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| Fuchsia |
morning of 24th
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| Cosmos in the morning |
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| I cropped this slightly and changed the contrast a little bit |
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| I only altered the contrast in this photo ever so slightly |
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| I only cropped this photo very slightly, other than that unedited. |
Anyway that is probably enough cosmos photos for now! I will hopefully post again soon with some interesting caterpillars I have seen on various walks and vol tasks. Thanks for reading all :)
