Flowers 4, originally uploaded by kcm76.
Stand of flowers outside the supermarket in Bushey Heath.
Category Archives: natural history
Yeuch of the Day
Noreen was off early(ish) today on a work outing. On her way she phoned me to say she had found an embryo lying on our front garden path and had moved it into the shrubbery nearby so no-one trod on it. (Handily we keep a trowel by the front door for burying the cats’ prey.)
Of course being interested in natural history I had to go and look. And yes, there was a roughly 4 inch long fresh foetus, complete with placenta still attached. Nice! And of course I just had to photograph it.
But what is it? Well it isn’t human as it clearly has a tail. Phew! It is too big for domestic cat – it is bigger than a new-born kitten. Being London this immediately says it is going to be either fox or dog. I would guess it’s too late in the year for fox, and maybe a little large.
Hmm. Interesting, if slightly yeuchy – but not as yeuchy as I’d expected.
If anyone really wants to see the photo you can find it here. I bet you all say “yeeuuuwwww”, but still go and look anyway!
Quote: Belief
Isn’t it enough to see that a garden is beautiful without having to believe that there are fairies at the bottom of it too?
[Douglas Adams]
Something for a Summer Weekend
Rose, Buff Beauty from our garden. This old rose is supposed to be a bush, but it wasn’t doing very well so we moved it to under the silver birch tree — and it is now rambling up through the tree like there’s no tomorrow. The bloom was actually at least 2 feet above my head!
Rosa rugosa
This old species rose, Rosa rugosa, is growing in our garden hedge. It is such a stunning colour.
Moth of the Week
Found this wonderful specimen of a male White Ermine Moth, Spilosoma lubricipeda, resting on our bathroom windowsill this morning. It really was absolutely beautiful.
On Wild-Life and Adolescence
I’ve just finished reading My Natural History by Simon Barnes. Barnes is the award-winning Chief Sports Writer for the Times as well as a great wildlife enthusiast and ornithologist who has travelled the world in search of both sport and wildlife. He is erudite, as befits one who is so hugely well read, and a fan of Anthony Powell’s Dance, often working Powellian references into his sports writing.
My Natural History is written in Barnes’s light, forthright and eminently readable style. In 23 short chapters it tells the stories of significant moments in Barnes’s fifty-odd years in all of which he finds a wildlife connexion – many indeed being centred around wildlife. The tales vary from great achievements (mostly of the wildwood; always understated), through great loves to the occasional disturbing poignancy. It is short, light, bedtime reading, and no worse for that for it could easily be sub-titled “How to be a Success without any Effort while Remaining Interesting and Human”.
As a example of his insight be writes this apropos his (no, anyone’s) adolescence:
Does that [an idealistic, youthful vision] sound frightfully adolescent? Well, so it bloody well should. We were bloody adolescents. Why do we sneer at adolescence? Why, when we look back in maturity at the wild notions and the demented hopes and the illogical beliefs and the ephemeral soul-deep passions of our adolescence, do we feel it our duty to sneer? Or apologise? Why do we not instead believe that adolescence is not a cursed but a blessed period of life: a white-water ride down the river of time. These rapids are not a place to spend a lifetime, but they are an essential transitional process if you wish to be an adult with any kind of life, any kind of passion, any kind of meaning. True, the stuff we came up with was half-baked: but then neither it nor we had been in the oven for terribly long. We were celebrating our newness, our rawness, celebrating the irrefragable fact that life was all before us: for us to change, for us to be changed irretrievably by.
Pink Spire
Pink Horse Chestnut, originally uploaded by kcm76.
Just to brighten up a dull and wet bank holiday Saturday, here’s a spire of Red Horse Chestnut (probably Aesculus × carnea) flowers.
A Little Piece of Spring
Blossom on our apple tree.
Cherry Blossom
Yay! Spring is definitely here, at last. All the cherry blossom is out; the birch catkins swing low among the new bright green leaves. And the apple blossom is not far behind — if the weather stays fine and warm (which it is forecast to) the apple tree will be in full bloom before the end of the weekend – I can just see pink buds breaking this afternoon. Wouldn’t it be lovely if it stayed like this all summer – warm sun and clear blue skies?!