6 Million trees but no murmuration....

I have to start this blog update with a warning that I have felt compelled to make a change to comments on my blog. I have been spending increasing amounts of time deleting spam posts of late and in light of this, I have re-set the comment box to needing approval before publishing.

You need to do nothing and can (and hopefully, will) continue to comment as normal but there will be a small delay in the comment appearing on my blog whilst I approve. I hope this'll be a temporary measure and apologise for any inconvenience.

Okay...the boring stuff out of the way. Let's get started...

I wanted to mark the Woodland Trust's achievement of planting so many trees to celebrate 60 years of the Queen's reign and locally, we have seen two new woodland areas created. Local people assisted with planting thousands of small trees beginning in December of last year and it will be interesting to see the progress over the next few years as the woodland and wild flowers develops.

We are still blaming the jet stream for continuing winter weather and frosty mornings in particular...spotted this frosted feather one morning...

On better days, there are signs of spring to be found. there are also currently nice things like these alder catkins to be found...

Just a couple of days ago, I saw my first cuckoo-flower of the year. Cuckoo-flower is a precursor to the orange-tip butterflies and I'm hoping for a better year for them than last. As with almost all of our native butterflies, last year was disastrous....

But I suppose the one thing that tends to sum up spring more than most would be frogspawn. I hadn't seen any this year until a trip to Marden Meadows, a local nature reserve, about a week ago; where I found just one clump in one of the ponds...

And so what about bugs and insects? Oh I could fill another 3 blog entries with all my recent finds! Okay, may have introduced a small element of exaggeration there. Let me 'trim-down' the statement to..well..the truth?

Far less shield-bugs than I would have expected or hoped for. In fact, only this little forest bug nymph thus far...

Spider warning...spider warning...spider warning...(can't risk the wrath of ladies scorned)...

Wolf Spider

Jumping Spider

This second image is a bit 'noisy' because I sat one evening with nothing better to do and re-made my flash diffuser. Didn't get it quite right though and now need to tweak it a little.

Same with the next one...

Breathe easy...breathe easy...Urgh!..Maybe not, I forgot about this monster..

This photo (above) was also a bit of a failure...story of my life! I was trying out lens combinations on this beetle that I found upside down in the water butt....but.....well, I won't bore you with details, just say that the quality wasn't there to get a good image. I converted to mono to try and improve the appearance for you but even so..never mind, as I keep telling myself..."All part of the learning curve..."

A couple of days ago on a visit to a local graveyard...No laughing please- I wasn't checking availability of plots;I saw a row of trees in the distance smothered in starlings, very noisy starlings...no respect! Actually I was kind of hoping for a murmuration but sadly I still have that on my list of things to see.

How do you get from starlings to scale insects? No idea, so best just post the photo...

Scale insects (Coccoidae) While there's some variation, they start as free-moving crawlers, with the females becoming less mobile as they mature. In most groups, the females attach to a single spot and lose legs, antennae, etc., so that they begin to look more like some kind of growth than an insect. Both mobile and non-mobile types develop thick protective layers of wax or other inert substances, often in elaborate shapes- so it's hard to see the actual insect underneath.

Oh and no, I didn't know everything here without researching it. Interesting structures though. Here's a different type I found in 2011 in the garden...

Now is also the time to start looking on ivy for the tiny hopper nymphs of Issus coleoptratus who over-winter on this plant. I found my first of the year this week and as it was the first, took a number of photographs. This little critter is no more than 6mm in length...

And so I guess we can say that spring is on its way at last but it may well be a slow start this year, which brings me back nicely to where I came in...blame the jet stream.

Until the next time then...

Only in England...

 Only in England? We do seem to have our fair share of weather extremes here:often within the space of a few days. On Sunday I was out walking and spotted this blackthorn flower,the first I have seen this year...

Blackthorn flowers

There have been several other signs of spring that I'll come to in a moment, but to illustrate my point about the weather, today we woke to a blanket of snow. I won't bother you with a photograph though, I'm sure we all know what snow looks like after this winter. The forecasters tell us that there is no sign of a change in the next 10 days....B****r!

On better days, there are a few invertebrates getting about now...

First (7-spot) Ladybird sighting of 2013

A picture-wing fly

Not sure but could this little fly be 'Terellia tussilaginis' (Tephritidae)? Actually, scrub that...too early! Pretty thing whatever it is though.

Plenty of jumping spiders around in the garden now

I have also been continuing my journey into photographing other nature subjects aside from insects and bugs...

And a couple of macro shots of lichen...

Whilst I was admiring this lichen,I also found more of the strange little things that I believe are correctly known as 'slime-mould'. Not a nice name for something that can be quite delicate and interesting...well, to me anyhow...

It does feel as though the spring insects are going to be delayed this year. I have seen my first couple of hoverflies in the garden though. On one sunny(ish) day I saw a little marmalade fly and then the following day, this drone fly...

This looks like a female common drone fly (Eristalis tenax) to me. These are very common and gained their name because of the ability to mimic bee drones. There is anothe possibility of E.pertinax but it's slimmer and has orange front tarsi I think?

As I write this (Friday 15th March) we have a slightly warmer day but now it's raining. Spring/Summer better be good when it does arrive that's all I can say!

Until the next time then...

Camber Sands and a pillbox...

Monday 4th February we were told by the weather forecasts would be one of the best days for sunshine so far this year. I'm not saying that they were wrong (perish the thought) but following quite a hard frost, at 10am it was still cold enough to be painful.
But then, to be fair I was by then at Camber Sands on the East Sussex coast and it's invariably colder at the coast.

Click any photo for larger view

Low tide might be a good time to find any wildlife that may be present and also reveals huge expanses of smooth sand, ideal for Herbie the terrier to run around on.

Unfortunately the opportunities for finding any live macro subjects were almost zilch! Too cold, too early in the season? The sands themselves were vast but offered little to tempt me aside from the abundance of sea shells.

By late morning,despite as thorough search as I could manage in the cold conditions, the only living things I had photographed were some horses as they were being prepared for a 'hack' (is that the right term?) along the beach...

I determined to spend some time photographing the sands as there seemed plenty to choose from...

The next photo was one of those happy mistakes. I half-dropped the little p&s camera as I was switching it on and this was the resulting picture...I kinda liked it...

And a couple taken towards the sun that by now had managed to lift the temperature nicely...

With the sea at your back, the dunes that are a big part of this environment become obvious and that's where the next few pictures were taken...

I found this lovely spike..possibly new growth?

From the edge of the dunes, you can just about make out the wind farm at nearby Romney Marsh...

The wind turbines viewed from a different spot, this time with a few of the famous Romney Marsh sheep...

Returning to the dunes, these are mostly of marram grasses but there are also dense areas of sea-buckthorn and although I had no idea of just what buckthorn looks like, I think that this is what the next photo shows, it's still in its bare, winter state and so difficult to be sure 100%...

Apparently this stretch of sands (approx 7miles) is home to the brown-tail moth caterpillar that makes its home on sea-buckthorn. It might be worth another visit come late spring when the buckthorn is in full swing and the caterpillars are emerging?

The other thing I found in the dunes that was a real surprise was this beautiful moss(?) It was only very small and growing directly on the sand. I haven't had much luck yet with an i.d. for this but then, I wouldn't expect to, as I've said before my photography skills are better than my identifying skills.

Back to the beach then...must be something worth pointing the macro lens at down here? Herbie decided at this point to either emulate me or parody me, not sure which...

What had I discovered to photograph?

And then more sandy shots...

And finally before it was time to move on, I came across this gorgeous little shell. I just had to photograph this one...

And so it was time to bid farewell to sunny Camber and head for Rye and a diversion through Appledore, hugging the edge of the military canal where I find so many dragonfly species along with the huge marsh frogs in summer, before arriving in Tenterden to check out the spectacular display of crocus flowers under the plane trees that line the main road through.

On the road to Rye, I stopped to photograph the trees that seemed to be on fire. Probably new growth on the willow(?) trees...

Through Rye and heading for the village of Appledore, time for a coffee break. There was a pull-in large enough to park up and restore caffeine levels. Having done so, I noticed a small gate that led to the canal and standing at the top of the bank, a World War ll pillbox...

These are small fortified constructions supposed to protect occupants from any invasion. There's more about these strange little buildings here should you wish to abandon this blog update in favour of war relics.

A look inside a pillbox

      And looking through one of the openings used for fire arms...

Directly opposite this pillbox the stretch of canal seems to be home to a pair of swans...not too sure what this one was doing...honking?

On to Appledore then and a brief stop to photograph another swan, this one was green though!

Then Tenterden and yes, there were drifts of crocus flowers under every tree and all were being visited by honey bees.Spring, what a beautiful and energetic time of year. So much to look forward to, I have a feeling this year is going to be special...

Something of a marathon update but hopefully you've found something of interest and if not? Well there's always next time...

Until then...tarra chuck (or any endearment you prefer)...