more autumnal scenes

in the woods near Broadgate, Luckett.

squirrats

just to prove that rats are grey squirrels with bare tails. Current score:- rats 35 lurchers 0, match was abandoned at half time due to fog in dogs' heads.

sunrise spectacular

it was an amazing sight this morning as the sun rose over Stoke Climsland

fungi are back

for the first time this year there are some fungi appearing in the woods. The top picture is of a coral fungus growing on a pine stump; it looks exactly like a piece of white coral, but smells unpleasant. The next picture is my idea of what a mushroom should look like, minus the caterpillar on the top smoking a hookah. The bottom picture is of staghorn fungi.

a camera shy bird

It is surprisingly difficult to get a good photo of magpies. This solitary bird has been hanging around the garden for several days and coming down to feed on the bird feeders.

waiting for sunrise

rooks waiting for the sun to rise, the tower of Stoke Climsland church is just visible through the bare branches of the huge sycamores that stand over Venterdon duck pond

looking for cold newts

I like the evil glint in this buzzard's eye.

as cold as a newt

a small newt of some sort that was caught out by last night's cold and was stunned into immobility outside the front door. As soon as it had warmed up a bit in my hand it was off. It was probably migrating from a garden pond somewhere nearby. All newts are protected (see link).

mist on the Tamar

with the first cold morning of the autumn comes the first frost, and the mist gathers in the river valley. Just visible in the far distance to the left is Princeton radio mast on Dartmoor.

Tamar images

a warm, soft day with early morning mist enveloping the river and moving through the trees. One solitary dipper bombing about.

early hibernator

this hairy caterpillar (?tiger moth) was trying to burrow under a puffball, no hookah in sight though.

meeting places

but I didn't have to walk far to see these rooks. I was wondering what they were doing but on reflection I think they were trying to warm up as the sun started to burn through the mist.

a soft day

the view from Kelly Bray woods, looking North. The church tower in Stoke Climsland is just visible through the mist.

Pictures are in short supply at the moment because walking is proving painful.

early autumn

the trees in the Tamar valley are showing the first signs of the leaves turning brown.

still no fungi, very few flowers and one solitary dipper.

Kit Hill quarry

there has been very little to photograph recently and for various reasons I haven't been out as much, so I am going to trawl through my archives for photos taken at the same time of year (within a week) to keep the blog changing at least until November when it will have been up for two years. Last year at this time the woods were full of mushrooms, this year there are very few as yet. Kit Hill quarry has always provided me with a wealth of image material because of the wonderful interplay between the colours in the rocks, the wildflowers and the restless surface of the water creating natural impressionist paintings. My favourite image is of swallows dipping into the water when it is absolutely still and squeaking with ?excitement/pleasure, but I have yet to capture it to my satisfaction. Next year maybe. I like that sense that things will return in the great cycle of life even as the autumnal gloom descends.

house guests

as the summer ends the large spiders are coming back indoors to frighten those of a nervous disposition. Close up and not squashed they are a marvel of natural engineering.

a good year for apples

a crab apple tree in the woods bearing a very heavy crop of apples. Our own apple trees are cropping very well with sweet unblemished fruit.

buzzards

buzzards are usually seen gliding with wings outstretched, but they find it hard to get going from a standing start.

harriet is right here

by special request, Harriet on her early morning trouble finding escapade.

autumn mornings II

on Kit Hill, looking northwards down the spoil pile towards Stoke Climsland.

autumn mornings

early morning, a misty day with the sun rising over Hingston down, Dartmoor on the horizon.

webs

... and so last night we captured a holly bush, bound it in gossamer and waited for the sun to rise.

late flowering

and to add to an earlier post (see Comfrey below) here is a very fresh alkanet flowering in September.

nipplewort

OK, this isn't a very thrilling blog but my eye is always caught by Nature's little intricacies, all that hard work and design. A green finch flew into one of our windows yesterday, killing itself. What is so striking about birds when examined very closely, is the sheer beauty of the feathers, down to the smallest details. It is so hard to be a very strict Darwinian when one's heart yearns for a designer. Dogs are, if I may be FRANK for a moment, an example of the very best of the designer's handicraft.

mellow

crab apples (?) on Rowden lane; we are having the mists but the fruit is not mellow quite just yet.

autumn is coming

the lanes are just beginning to turn brown as autumn starts. Spot apologises for the lack of posts but his photographer has been indisposed recently.

comfrey

It has been a strange year. Comfrey normally flowers in May and June. A lot of plants seem to be flowering again or just lingering on, including magnolia, wisteria, rhododendrons, and clematis

Minions, hurlers and cheesewrings

Rosie (third horse from the front, and Spot's equine third cousin) and friends (from lower Tokenbury) passing by the Cheesewring. The whole area is covered in the ruins of mine workings and evidence of very ancient inhabitation.

flowing past

a soothing image of the Tamar flowing past on a sunny day

sawwort

this could be the rayed version of lesser knapweed, but the bracts on the buds look much more like sawwort, in either case it is very pretty.

high street Venterdon

everyone is called Martin, packed for the winter holidays in Africa, and ready to go.

by popular request

dreaming of Frank, and the big boys in my life.

more fritillaries

I am not sure which of the large fritillaries this is. You need to get a good view of the underside of the wings to be sure and it was extremely uncooperative about this important issue, but it is either a dark green fritillary, or a high brown fritillary, or a niobe fritillary (only to be found in damp meadows in mainland europe!). It was fast moving and quite light coloured so it is probably a tattered high brown, and the forewing is gently concave. (there are lots of good butterfly links)

red bartsia

the small but intricate flowers of red bartsia, growing in meadows near you. Once considered a cure for toothache, hence its latin name odontites (as in orth-odontics ...straight teeth). It is semi parasitical and closely related to lousewort and yellow rattle (qv)

paintings by nature ... water mint

early morning dew on water mint, in a marsh near you

paintings by nature no 3891:- marsh woundwort

I never cease to marvel at the beauty and complexity of common things. This photo shows the beautiful intricate markings of the flowers of marsh woundwort, to be found growing in ditches near you.

something new - gipsywort

It is always exciting to stumble across something completely new. This is gipsywort. It is supposed to be common although I have never noticed it before. Superficially it looks like white deadnettle. It is the source of a black dye that, in the past, itinerant fortune tellers were supposed to use to give themselves a more swarthy appearance that would lend credibility to their gipsy/ancient Egyptian origins.

red admiral of Venterdon

a beautiful day has brought out a lot of red admirals and painted ladies, and they are drawn like magnets to buddleia flowers.

a small visitor

a wood mouse, caught sunbathing, and surprisingly unworried about posing for a photograph.

fingerposts

these fingerposts are scattered through the parish. I am sure they exist elsewhere but they are very characteristic of this area. Beals Mill to the right, Bray shop and Stoke straight ahead; I can't make out the name at the bottom.

Returning to it later (22/8), I can see it says Calstock, which is surprising because it is by no means the closest village in that direction.

lesser stitchwort

the white flower is lesser stitchwort. It has very slender stems that are trailing through the more robust stems of knapweed. If you enlarge the photo you can see the characteristic cinnamon coloured pollen on the flower second from the top.

what sort of trash is this?

someone very kindly dumped these objets d'art at the end of Rowden lane. The lamp thing is very distinctive. Do you recognise it? Can we identify the villains?

yellow what?

I am not sure what this is, I think it is a female yellowhammer, but could it be a female cirl bunting? I suspect not on the general principle that common things are common. Yellowhammers feed on the ground but like to sing from the top of trees. Notice swarm of horseflies about to descend on to photographer.

eyebright, surrounded by the eponymous rattle seed heads, and below, the brightest of bright red, the scarlet pimpernel flashing at the sun.