Nature notes

[PhiltheGeek]

Now that the snow is mostly gone, we can begin to see the damage left behind. Clyde and I have finally returned to the high wood, where numerous broken branches litter the way and block the path. There is a moral lesson on the evils of extremism. In the centre of the wood the Scots pines are tall but pretty evenly balanced in their development; on the margins some have grown lop-sidedly, stretching far out on the open side and restricted on the closed. One of these giants, weighed down as it was by snow on its unevenly distributed branches, has toppled over completely and now presents a formidable obstacle to honest wayfarers. See what happens if you veer too far to the left or too far to the right!

Among newly revealed signs of note there are interesting networks of what appear to be the lower portions of small tunnels; these have been excavated between the surface of the soil and the formerly overlying snow and are mostly too small for moles. They may well be the work of field mice, whilst some more rounded scrapings may have been produced by deer digging for food. I have noticed neither in previous years, but it is a long time since this part of the world has spent a month under the snow.

Today we marked another first, with a brief visit to the bird-table by a great spotted woodpecker, never before seen here, though often heard. I hope he can be encouraged to return and be photographed. After a period in which the seed feeder was being emptied in hours, the birds have now returned to more restrained eating habits. I am not sure whether the same can be said of the squirrels, which infuriate Clyde by visiting the bird table whilst he is shut in the conservatory. He is now the master of a blistering forty yard dash in an attempt to cut off retreating squirrels at the pass!

[cravemoor]

I've just been for a long walk and despite all the cold, miserable weather we have been having the snow drops are out

[PhiltheGeek]

Hey-ho! Here was I just looking forward to replying to Cravemoor with the news that our snowdrops were out too, when three days ago we found ourselves back under the snow again. It is not a lot of snow, no more than a couple of inches, but is has provided another excuse to postpone gardening chores. The most exciting events have been a high speed dash by a roe deer across the field that we were out walking in, (Clyde was looking the other way), and overflights by buzzard and heron. One day an enormous skein of at least a hundred geese passed by, cacophonously discussing goose-news. I suppose it might have been the still awaited local enquiry report into, amongst other things, the relative importance of human and goose habitats.

In the great bird-table war, the squirrels have now figured out how to lift the lid of the seed feeder and slide up the perspex side, allowing all the contents to fall out. I believe the squirrel leader's name is Onemug (which is English for Einstein.)

[PhiltheGeek]

Having recently joined the local writers' circle, I am occasionally inspired to write petry for the first time in half a lifetime; not that what follows is exactly poetry, but it does catch the events of last night. However it is libellous to Clyde, who was shut out of the bedroom deliberately! You have to be quite old, I suspect, to recognise the song on which it is based, and even older to recognise the pun in the title "Our Gal and the Night Visitors."

Chorus:

Does a tawny owl lose its feathers, on your bedpost overnight?
If it starts ter-wit ter-wooin’ do you holler out in fright?
Can you catch it in your sweater, and urge it to take flight?
Does a tawny owl lose its feathers, on your bedpost overnight?


She said, “I told you so!
Not many months ago,
There were jackdaws
Messing up the sock drawers.
And now you let in owls,
I’ll hide under the towels,
And when you get it out of here, it’ll be my voice that growls:”

Chorus

I struggled manfully,
Our feathered friend to free,
Through open sash
At length it made a dash,
Then I went back to bed,
And our gal to me said,
“I didn’t bank on tawny owls when you asked me to wed:”


Chorus:

And then our mastiff’s paw
Came scratching at the door,
Higher and higher,
He shouted “Where’s the fire?
It’s all right, I am here,
Whenever danger’s near,
You’ll always find a mastiff standing safely in the rear!”

Chorus

Gal said, “The answer’s plain,
Only one course remains,
You had better,
Become a wire netter.
On the roof you must go,
I tell you don’t be slow,
If you let one more bird in here, then I shall want to know:”

Chorus

“I’ll brook no more delay,
Just fix that lum today!
In the bedroom,
There’s not sufficient headroom.
The place just looks a sight!
Covered in soot and (droppings)
Are you going to net the chimney now or wait for a red kite?!”

Chorus:

Does a tawny owl lose its feathers, on your bedpost overnight
If it starts ter-wit ter-wooin’ do you holler out in fright?
Can you catch it in your sweater, and urge it to take flight?
Does a tawny owl lose its feathers, on your bedpost overnight?

[Maggie'sMom]

lol, very clever...ah yes, my mother taught this tune to me... "does your chewing gum lose it's flavor on the bedpost overnite?"...

[amanda]

excellent, and no i didnt know the original

[PhiltheGeek]

Oh dear! Well for all you young sprogs who missed the great Lonnie Donegan first time around:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vXp0i7Y1eVo

Lonnie, by the way, dates from a pre-Beatles era called "skiffle."

[Maggie'sMom]

ah-ha me old son...what about "Rock island Line"...? The man was also a tremendous influence on many later rock acts like The Beatles, especially George Harrison...I believe Mark Knopfler of Dire Straits even put out a tribute album (ok, cd, whatever!) to the man after his death, did he not...?

[PhiltheGeek]

For the third time this winter we are under the snow. It has snowed all day and the wind chill when Clyde and I walked this morning was fierce, though the thermometer alleged that the temperature was 33 degrees - a likely story. However I thought I had to stand up for Minolta (no-one else will these days) given the remarkable quality of Porgster's Canon images (on another thread.) So in between the periods of snow I was determined to produce a good pic of some spring flowers. Here is my effort:



Until the snow clears that will be all the flowers we shall see, I expect, and I am beginning to worry about the amount of die-back on the camellias. Will the magnolia get through the winter at all? Can hydrangeas survive a sub-zero month? Tune in next week as our intrepid gardener and his mastiff attempt to set foot outside the back door!

Meanwhile, back to Donegan and cocoa!

[PhiltheGeek]

The snow has finally retreated. I cannot recall a winter like this in all the years that we have lived here. It is fortunate that Clyde did not encounter these weather problems last winter, or our efforts to rehabilitate him from the hip dysplasia problems would have been seriously set back. Several times we have been forced to resort to (horrors!) walking on the road because the snow in the field made the going too tiring (for the people, not the dog.)

The intended hay field of last summer, which could not be cut because of rain, has since proved impossible to graze because of snow. It resembles nothing so much as coconut matting; long grass pressed flat by the snow, killed by the freezing temperatures and turned light brown. Fortunately we were able to purchase a good grass harrow last week, which will be in vigorous use as soon as the ground dries up a bit!

Although spring signs are said to be delayed everywhere, here the crocuses are more or less on cue, and very welcome.



There is serious die-back on several plants, and it still remains to be seen whether we have lost some altogether. Daffodils look as though they will be late, but one can hardly blame them in these temperatures. It is, in theory, a good time to be digging my this year's potato patch, so I suppose I should go and do that instead of skulking around in the computer room!

[porgster]

Hi Phil
like your flower pics, never had much luck taking photos of flowers myself, must try a bit harder.

thought you might be interested in these, brought mysellf a super macro lens last year and was in the garden bug hunting,
finding bugs is no problem but getting them to stay still !! ARRRRGH

[cravemoor]

Wow they are pretty good photo's if a little gruesome (flies eyes - eugh !!!!)

And I am pleased to announce that at last we have 3 daffs in flower - yeah spring is on its way lol

[PhiltheGeek]

One of the great things about photography, and it's the same with painting or descriptive writing and so on, is that it encourages you to look more closely and see things that the casual observer might not see. Of course if you have macro-lenses then you will literally see things that cannot be detected by the naked eye. I don't believe that I have ever seen a better illustration of a compound eye than Porgster has shown above. I find that taking out the camera on my walks with Clyde, and just in general around the place, I learn quite a lot simply by finding a reference work and discovering what it is that I have photographed. Last year, for example, I was teaching myself lepidoptery as I went along, and, as I mentioned earlier, I promptly made an interesting discovery about a local variation in the pattern of ringlet butterflies. Now, in the great scheme of things, the fact that High Braes ringlets differ from lowland ringlets may not be earth shattering, or even previously unkown, but it does give one a certain sense of satisfaction to find out something by one's own efforts rather than relying on published information. You also read it here first, folks, that there was an untoward prevalence of painted lady butterflies last summer - a fact subsequently reported on in the national press!

I think however that there is a more general point that is of some importance. As William Henry Davies memorably told us:

"What is this life if, full of care,
We have no time to stand and stare."

Now here is one of the great things about having a mastiff and living in a remote (-ish?) rural area and working from home rather than commuting stressfully as I used to do. Clyde and I can just take ourselves off to the moor or the woodland and do what we like - of course in his case relatively little standing and staring is involved!

[PhiltheGeek]

Just in case you thought that the crocus above is in splendid isolation, here are a few of its chums:



You will also see the delayed snowdrops still blooming, along with a primrose (bottom centre.)

And just to prove that we can do other colours:



and:



And now we are promised some more snow!

[PhiltheGeek]

Well, the weather has been truly extraordinary. Fortunately the most recent lot of snow was relatively short-lived, though since I was caught in it on the ridge road at night it did not seem a minor event at the time! Then everything turned to mud, and now we have had three consecutive warm days and all of the delayed spring flowers have come out in a rush. The early daffodils were not much more than a week ahead of the lates, we have lungwort, celandine and periwinkle and all kinds of primroses, and this morning the first broom was observed to be in flower.

Meanwhile we are still in the 'wait and see' phase about the marginally-hardy shrubs that may or may not have made it through the prolonged icy spell. The gardeners on Scottish BBC helpfully explained that the problem was the thaw after the first lengthy period under the snow, that was followed by a frost and another snowfall before the drainage from the first thaw was complete. Since snow provides an insulating blanket, trapping the soil temperature at whatever it happens to be, the second snow period that trapped the freezing soil temperatures is what has done all the damage.

To my astonishment the first butterfly in the warm spell was a lesser tortoiseshell. This was the last species to be observed last year. However today feels about twenty degrees cooler, so they may have been a bit premature!