This Green Woodpecker was visiting my west London suburban garden earlier today. I certainly don’t see them regularly, maybe just 2 or 3 times a year, and they are always a delight especially when they stay for a few minutes to feed, as this one did.
It’s not a brilliant photo as I was trying to hand-hold my biggest telephoto lens, in poor winter afternoon light, while leaning out of the window.
BBC News today has an item suggesting the the freezing over of ponds is actually good for them, contrary to apparent logic.
I see the basic logic behind the article, emphasising that freezing over could increase the oxygen levels in the water, although I would like to see some evidence of this being true. However as a long-time pond keeper (aka. fish keeper) and as the moderator of an online aquatics forum, I would not agree with a number of the ideeas and suggestons made in the article which I think are potentially misleading (or worse) …
Received wisdom says that pond owners should break a hole in the ice to allow oxygen to reach the water.
NO! Never break a hole in the ice. They get it right later: “make a hole”. Do this either by keeping an area clear (eg. with a football or a pond heater) or by melting a hole with hot water. Never, never smash the ice if there are fish in the pond: the shock wave will likely kill the fish.
Making a hole in the ice makes very little difference to the amount of oxygen in this water
This is probably true, but a hole could make a difference if there is a concentration of other unwanted gasses in the pond water.
The only time that pond owners should intervene is if they own fish, or the bottom of their ponds are full of silt and dead leaves. Then it is worth stirring up the water
Again I would disagree. If you have fish, do NOT stir up the water. The water may be layered into thermoclines with slightly warmer water at the bottom which will benefit the fish. Moreover if you have fish and a silty bottom (!!) then disturbing the debris can release potentially toxic gasses like ammonia – it may also disturb hibernating amphibians. If you’re going to stir up the bottom of your pond to remove detritus, then do it in mid-summer.
This week’s Flickr meme is: For this coming New Year how about 12 pictures, one for each month of the old year (ie. 2009) to represent something about what happened to you that month. Here is my year in 12 pictures.
January: A new project boss; there were no prisoners taken
February: Snow
March: Daffodils; there’s hope at last
April: Spring blossom
May: Anthony Powell Society Collage Event
June: Attended the Garter Service at Windsor, thanks to our friend Richmond Herald
July: The company pension crisis broke, which has led me to early retirement from 5 January 2010
August: Was taken up with preparations for the conference and writing my conference paper
September: While in Washington DC for the Anthony Powell Conference we celebrated our 30th wedding anniversary — eeekkkkk!
October: Anthony Powell Society AGM at which Patric Dickinson (3rd from left in this old photo) spoke interestingly about Dorothy Varda
November: Beaujolais Nouveau est arrivée; an antidepressant is definitely required
December: More snow coincides with my last real working day
All in all an interesting year but a demanding and, at times, a stressful one.
As always the photographs are not mine (except for 3, 5, 10, 11 which are mine) so please click on individual links below to see each artist/photostream. This mosaic is for a group called My Meme, where each week there is a different theme and normally 12 questions to send you out on a hunt to discover photos to fit your meme. It gives you a chance to see and admire other great photographers’ work out there on Flickr.
1. Umm, Jack Hanna sure tastes good !, 2. Snow in the Chilterns, 3. Daffs, 4. Spring in Pink, 5. Power Collage, 6. Img0051768, 7. House of Cards, 8. Balloons just waiting to be blown up, 9. Flower Candy, 10. AP Soc Members at Wysall, 11. Anti-Depressant, 12. gloom, with more sheep
Created with fd’s Flickr Toys
Brilliant!
This week’s Flickr meme is to find 12 things you would plant in your garden. As usual here’s my rather liberal interpretation of the theme:
1. Old Roses
2. Woodland Glade
3. Herb Garden
4. Big Koi Pond
5. Blackberries & other soft fruit
6. Chillies
7. Scented Geraniums
8. Bamboo
9. Fruit Trees
10. Flowering Currant (Ribes)
11. Walled Vegetable Garden
12. Pine Trees
Except for #1 and #10 which are mine, as always the photographs are not mine so please click on individual links below to see each artist/photostream. This mosaic is for a group called My Meme, where each week there is a different theme and normally 12 questions to send you out on a hunt to discover photos to fit your meme. It gives you a chance to see and admire other great photographers’ work out there on Flickr.
1. Apothecary’s Rose, 2. Spring arrives in the woods, 3. Herb garden, 4. Koi Pond, 5. September Blackberries, 6. Chilli plants, 7. Scented Geranium, Walsall 13/09/2008, 8. Kyoto bamboo, 9. magic fruit tree, 10. Flowering_Currant, 11. The Vegetable Patch, 12. Buttermere
Created with fd’s Flickr Toys
Well not really on the ranch, more in the fish pond. This very hot, humid and airless weather has taken a toll on my pond fish. Over the last 3 days I’ve lost 8 fish, most of them koi carp. None of then were of any great monetary value, but of course as with any “pet” they are of sentimental value. And we are not talking small fish here; we’re talking koi the size of a damn good salmon!
These were my fish last year; the three big ones in the centre of the picture are amongst those I’ve lost in the last few days. The golden orange one was almost 25 years old and one of my very first pond fish.
Coldwater fish do not like this weather. It is well known that water gets starved of oxygen in warm, sticky, stormy weather. This last few days has been especially bad; I don’t remember anything so hot and humid for many years. and of course it hits the largest fish hardest. They have a larger body mass to support, and their body mass to gill are ratio must be higher than in smaller fish. So the big fish get hit first. But then I do also partly blame myself as my pond maintenance has probably not been up to scratch recently.
It’s a timely reminder not just of the fragility of life but of the old adage about fishkeeping: We are not fishkeepers, we are water keepers.
Fortunately it has been noticeably cooler today, and the forecast is for it to get cooler through the weekend and for rain from Sunday; both of which will help.
Here’s a second version of this week’s Flickr meme : A dozen roses!
As I particularly like old roses I decided to do a second version, with all the pictures taken from the Flickr Roses anciennes – Old garden roses group.
As always these photographs are not mine so please click on individual links below to see each artist/photostream. This mosaic is for a group called My Meme, where each week there is a different theme and normally 12 questions to send you out on a hunt to discover photos to fit your meme. It gives you a chance to see and admire other great photographers’ work out there on Flickr.
1. Variegata di Bologna, 2. Louise Odier, 3. Alister Stella Gray 1894 Noisette, 4. Fantastic Smell, 5. Rosa Gallica Splendens, 6. Variegata di Bologna, 7. abeille sur rosier American Pilar, 8. ghislaine de féligonde, 9. Untitled, 10. Reines des Violettes rose, 11. Mme Legras de St. Germain, Rosa alba-hybrid, 12. Cibles
Created with fd’s Flickr Toys.
Spring has sprung! Lets celebrate by sending each other a virtual bouquet! So this week’s Flickr meme is : A dozen roses meme! Find the 12 prettiest Flickr roses to build your bouquet.
As I love roses, especially old roses (as you’ll see from the pictures) this was a delight to do.
Photos 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 and 11 are mine. The others are not mine but are all from my Flickr favourites. Please click on individual links below to see each artist/photostream. This mosaic is for a group called My Meme, where each week there is a different theme and normally 12 questions to send you out on a hunt to discover photos to fit your meme. It gives you a chance to see and admire other great photographers’ work out there on Flickr.
1. Mon Amie la Rose, 2. Rose, 3. Apothecary’s Rose, 4. Frosted Roses, 5. Red Rose 3, 6. Rose “Treasure Trove”, 7. Rose “Buff Beauty”, 8. Red Rose, 9. Another beautiful Double Delight Rose, 10. Disco, 11. Yellow Rose, 12. PICT0118
Created with fd’s Flickr Toys.
One of the flowering cheery trees on the Greenford Road, near junction with Whitton Avenue, just round the corner from home. Taken today on what was a lovely warm, sunny, Spring morning. A definite improvement on Winter!
What I had forgotten, momentarily, when I took this is that these daffodils are growing on the spot where we buried the Floss Cat’s ashes — it was his favourite sunbathing spot. They’ve been there for 11 or 12 years now and are still going strong, unlike many naturalised daffodils.
