the annual lamb photograph; someone obviously has a black sheep in the family.
Saturday, February 23, 2008
Tuesday, February 19, 2008
more twilight buzzards
this is very probably the same buzzard as before (same telegraph pole, same time), no fantasy this time but an honest photo.
Monday, February 18, 2008
twilight orange
it is heading to be the sunniest February on record (since 1681 or some such thing but probably not since the beginning of time). Sumptuous pastel colours, blue, green, orange and brown smeared casually across the skyline by Nature's best painter. Spot thinks somewhat immodestly that it is worth clicking on the sunsets label below to see how lucky we have been to see so many amazing sunsets.
global freezing
Spot wants to know where we would stop if we could control global warming. For example would we allow northern Europe to freeze over if we could return the Sahara desert to fertile grasslands? And who would decide?
goldcrests at work
there are five goldcrests in this picture, although only one is obvious. Very busy birds and fierce for their size, they have colonised our conifer plantations.
Sunday, February 17, 2008
cassie and her fan club
Spot's mum, and a couple of her admirers, reclining after a heavy day at the office hauling logs swimming, ice breaking (see below) and eating. Frozen camellias (I didn't know until now that there were two l's in camelia) to the right. Spot felt he would be skating on thin ice.
tree creeper
we are having trouble identifying birds at the moment, this looks like it should be a tree creeper and it spent some of its time perching up side down on the tree trunk. We also caught just a fleeting glimpse of a bird with a striking yellowish stripe around its eye ... a redwing we (Spot and I) are told, but no photographs yet.
today was blue
There was thick ice in the leets and puddles today as the hard frost persisted through the morning. The sky is deep blue and feels roofless. Nature seems a bit stunned by this cold turn, the frog spawn is stuck to the ice, the snowdrops are drooping and the buds are brown from frost bite. Life is on the cusp.
Saturday, February 16, 2008
Wednesday, February 13, 2008
mercury
mercury, either dog's or annual, probably dog's because it flowers earlier in the year and is found in woods and shady banks.
Tamar images 2
warm colours on the river above Endsleigh, I am not sure what is flying away from us.
Monday, February 11, 2008
sunset over Harri Fibonacci
Harri chasing frogs in a reed bed as the sun sets in the Inny valley, the air above her head is full of gnats or flies. As an experiment the photograph's dimensions are based on the fibonacci series, rather than a simple 1.333 ratio which Spot usually uses - does this make it more harmonious?
early bees
a honeybee (?) sunbathing, and a bumblebee feeding on mahonia. These photos are for the ongoing record of the changes taking place in this area. And before Spot can consume them. Why do dogs insist on trying to eat bees and wasps? It is mildly reassuring that the same bee appeared at about the same time last year.
ladybird spring
This ladybird was in the same place yesterday; it may be caught between getting frostbite and sunburn.
Sunday, February 10, 2008
more Spring
the beautiful, slender, diminutive native daffodil is coming into flower throughout the woods. This specimen is perched precariously on the banks of the Tamar in the deep grooves left by the river when it is in spate and it floods through these glades. Further down the river I found a very early flowering wood anemone. At home there were bumblebees, ladybirds and butterflies in the garden. It may be unnatural but it feels like Spring.
why is it so cloudy in Cornwall?
because everyone flies over us on their way to North America leaving huge swathes of condensation trails behind them. Stop it now.
the tower of Stoke Climsland church is on the skyline.
mystery moss, liverwort or hornwort
nor despite some superficial research into mosses, liverworts and hornworts (actually life is too short) can I identify exactly what these red organic parts belong to. They are not scarlet elf cups.
Saturday, February 09, 2008
flocks of what? Fieldfares?
a small but noisy flock of a thrush like bird but I
have no idea what they are 
(except the starling at the top of the tree in the second photo, and the chaffinches in the bottom picture).addendum:- after a sleepless night of research we think they are fieldfares, a gregarious and occasionally aggressive type of thrush
a wall of light
the strong sun low on the horizon created this illusion of a wall of light slicing through the woods. Or perhaps it was a spaceship going into warp drive near Luckett.
Wednesday, February 06, 2008
celandine proper
With some sun the celandines and primroses are flourishing. It is so mild it feels like spring, but celandines are always early to flower and these are no earlier than last year (see link).
Sunday, February 03, 2008
and the rest of Cornwall
looking west from the very top of Kit Hill. Pensilva and St Cleer hardly visible in the background, Callington in the middle ground, the pack in the foreground.
quarry, Kit Hill
Yesterday morning (Saturday) was a fine, cold morning with ice under foot and fascinating colours in the rocks.
King crow
slightly smaller than a rook and with a darker beak, this crow posed very nicely in front of the view from Kit Hill
Sunday, January 27, 2008
images from today's walk:tree
this beautiful mixture of colours in the early morning sun caught my eye.
images from today's walk:butterbur
butterbur, the only thing growing at this time of the year on the ground, underneath some balsamic poplars.
Friday, January 25, 2008
snowdrops 08
Snowdrops are out in abundance at my favourite snowdrop site in Trecombe woods below Carthamartha. These are the ordinary wild snowdrops which are tall and slender. Nearer the banks of the Inny there are lots of the complex variety (floccon de neige .... the translation seems tautological to me) as usual although they are not yet fully out. See last year's photo (link)
early celandines
Having survived the crises of the last two weeks we went out for a proper walk today. These battered looking flowers are some very early celandines, they must have been out for several days to look so weary. And it is reported that the ponds in Harrow Barrow are full of frog spawn since last week although we haven't seen any yet on this, the colder, side of Kit Hill.
Wednesday, January 16, 2008
more camelias
early flowering camelia by Stoke Climsland Church so at least some colour is returning now. It looks to me as if whoever planted the camelia in our garden took a cutting from this one. The daffodils are looking very splendid in the clean bright air when (ie very occasionally) the sun gets out.
Monks Cross
dawn over Monks Cross (and a local accident black spot) near Kit Hill. As always at dawn the rooks are doing their morning sun worshipping rituals without which, of course, the sun would stay put.
Saturday 12/01/08 before the fire storm began.
Friday, January 04, 2008
spoil heap colours
the striking colours on this spoil heap (near Old Mill) may be something to do with the toxic metals (arsenic, copper, cadmium, etc) to be found in the waste from the mines in this part of Cornwall. The striking moss may be an ornamental escapee but it is clearly flourishing on this wasteland. Barbed wire and moss sandwich is a local delicacy.
jays
we had the unusual pleasure today of watching this jay for about ten minutes as it furtively retrieved acorns hidden away earlier. They are usually very shy and difficult to follow although you can always hear them in the woods (as Simon Barnes wrote recently there is no such thing as a small emergency for a jay). So we often see flashes of their startling plumage but they never seem to pause to pose for photos.
Tuesday, January 01, 2008
hello 2008
a very very early camellia (for this particular specimen). Our summer rose is also about to bloom again. These are very unseasonal signs of the changing climate.
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