insects – Page 31 – My Photo Blog

Sitting in the Sun and Begbie Returns – 29 May 2016

Posted on May 29, 2016May 29, 2016 by Zogman

Sunshine again! Today we went to Loch Lubnaig, just north of the ‘Geriatrics’ Sunday Favourite’ Callander. We were late leaving and I just knew we were going to run into queues along the route. First bottle neck would be Dobbies garden centre just outside Stirling – It wasn’t too bad for a change. Next on the list would be Blair Drummond Safari Park. It was just as bad as I expected. All these families eager to see the wild animals. The queue was quite long, but as I drove past I glanced right and that was where the queueing really started and went on as far as the eye could see. Maybe it’s the passengers in the cars that would be wilder than the animals by the time they got parked. I wished them luck. Strangely, the rest of the journey was uneventful, even Chronic Callander and we got parked at the new lochside parking at Lubnaig without any trouble. An hour later, things were a bit more frantic in the carpark with cars abandoned everywhere. People just seemed to park wherever there was a space long enough and wide enough for their car, with no thought of how other drivers were going to negotiate their exit. They were in their space and that’s all that mattered. Dobbers!

Lunch was a roll ‘n’ sausage for me and a roll ‘n’ egg for Scamp. That was the last of the rolls and the last of the eggs. We got ours and that’s all that mattered! Loads of people there. Must have been well over 100. That’s what happens when you build a carpark at a scenic spot, provide facilities and catering. If you build it right, people will come. Think on this NLC. After a couple of hours sitting in the sun, we decided to head home. Scamp to do some gardening, me to cycle. However, a pair of numpties were parked right behind us and didn’t look like moving. No problem. I put on my Begbie voice and they shifted sharpish. Maybe it’s because I’ve just finished ‘The Blade Artist’ which is the story of how Begbie, the psycho from Trainspotting’s life has panned out. Anyway, homeward through the legions of Grey Hairs out for ice cream and chips in Callander.

Got a few photos of a little red damselfly while out on my bike and Scamp got her pansies planted.

Swallows are flying lower today which means the weather may not be as good tomorrow.

Walking in the Sunshine – 22 May 2016

Posted on May 22, 2016May 24, 2016 by Zogman

It’s a sunny Sunday and after breakfast we headed off over the fields and far away. Luckily Sim is friendly with the farmer and we got permission to walk through the horses’ fields to the right-of-way. I’m not that happy walking in fields with actual horses in them. Sim calls them ‘ponies’, but these aren’t anything like the ‘My Little Pony’ my daughter had when she was wee. These are big brown monsters, much bigger than me, but I treated them like I treat anyone bigger than me – don’t make eye contact, pretend they’re not there and everything will be fine. I did, and it was. we reached the relative safety of the road. Relative safety because this is a narrow single track road, but the drivers seem to think it’s their own personal autobahn. In other words, they think there is no speed limit. That said, we survived the killer ponies and the madskull drivers and started on our walk proper. Like yesterday it was mainly between fields of wheat and also yellow rapeseed. I synched the camera with my iPhone to allow me to geotag the photos. I knew it would only work with the ’10 and not the ‘5, but that wouldn’t matter because at least I’d have a record of the walk that I could plot on a map when I got back home. Checked the first one and all seemed to be well. We walked for an hour or so. Probably more than an hour because although JIC and Scamp were charging on ahead, Sim and I were constantly stopping to get some photos.

When we got to the top of one of the hills, gentle hills. This is Engerland, not mountainous Scottishland remember. They don’t do real hills here. Anyway, when we got to the main road at the top of one of the hills, there was a debate as to whether we should return by the same route or do a round trip. The round trip would mean walking on the grass verge at the side of the road and, since we’d already seen the stock car racing that was being done on the narrow road, we didn’t fancy our chances on the main road, so it was back the way we’d come.

On the way back we got a really good view of the ‘Chicken Prison’ or battery hen farm. If you’ve seen one of these travesties you will know why Scamp won’t but the cheapest chicken, but rather the free range ones. At least they had a slightly better life. We also got to see how a lovely vista across the green fields is destroyed by a solar panel farm. Just to complete the trilogy, there was a wind farm behind us. I’m all for being ‘green’, but just how efficient are these blots on the landscape? Wind farm windmills are white (white = pure) and generally now they are painted green at the bottom (green = natural). It’s all colour psychology, or kidology might be a more accurate description. During the first two weeks in April in Scotland almost no wind energy was generated as the wind wasn’t strong enough. It is not a viable alternative to traditional methods of generating electricity. Enough of the rant.

Back home after passing the demon ponies again, we had ice lollies and Pimms for lunch, then watched JIC starting the barbecue that would provide our supper. What a supper. Chicken kebabs for Scamp. Pork burger and sausages for the carnivores.

Dumped my photos and oh, oh, it looked like only one photo had been geotagged! Bummer. Then when I got them all in there were 40 tagged photos. Only one session, but forty photos in the session. All was good. Just as a finale, a woodpecker arrived at the bird table. I’ve never managed to get a photo of one. This one was a bit twitchy. Every time I went near the window, it went and hid in the big tree at the side of the garden. However, I managed about four good shots from a sitting position on the couch!

Back home tomorrow. I’d love to have stayed longer, but all good things must come to an end. We had an excellent day and an excellent break. Three days with Hazy and N D’Ag and three days with Sim and JIC.

Coffee and a walk in the Toon – 5 May 2016

Posted on May 5, 2016May 5, 2016 by Zogman

Coffee at lunch time with Val and Fred P. Quite enjoyed the cut and thrust of another “frank exchange of views”. Never one to allow the grass to grow under his feet, Fred held court on a variety of political issues of the day while Val attempted in vain to pour oil on troubled waters. Me? I threw in the occasional match to see if the oil would burn. Topics for discussion today were the cost of upgrading your central heating, In or Out of Europe and the poor selection of guests in Jools Holland’s programme. Sketches and paintings were critiqued and the world was set to rights. Thankfully the word ‘ANTISEMITISM’ was not used by any of the participants.

After the scintillating discussion, I headed in to Glasgow to get some masking fluid to try some different watercolour techniques. While I was in Cass Art, I wandered round their botanical watercolours exhibition and was really, really impressed with the quality and detail in the pictures. My favourite had to be the sweet peas. Such delicacy I can only dream of. Walking back to the car, I grabbed a shot of the elegant security grilles at the Buchanan Galleries carpark.

When I got home, after a great walk round Glasgow bathed in sunshine, Scamp reminded me that we hadn’t voted, so it was off again to do our constitutional duty. On the way back, we walked over to Condorrat to get a fish suppers for our dinner to celebrate the end of this boring baby kissing round of canvassing. On the way I spotted the little yellow ball shaped flower and took its photo, along with its resident fly. I wonder how many flies there are in, say, a cubic meter of bushes. Probably incalculable, but as we are talking about a finite volume, there must be a finite number. Multiply that by the number of cubic metres of bushes in Cumbersheugh and you have a very large number. Now, if all those flies voted for the Greens, would the SNP still get in? Probably. A little bit too much politics for this time of an evening.

Our plans for tomorrow were to go to Perth tomorrow (Friday), but they had to be changed at the last minute and we’ll probably go next week.

A couple of lucky ones – 1 May 2016

Posted on May 1, 2016 by Zogman

Today was wet from first thing this morning. Not heavy rain, but persistent. We took advantage of this to a certain extent by planting our potatoes in their bags. At least we didn’t need to water them once they had been planted. Scamp potted up her sweet peas and they are outside for their first overnight. She also planted out my rocket which I kept meaning to do, but just never got round to. Anyway, they are planted now. It doesn’t matter who did it.

Photographically, there wasn’t very much decent light with grey overcast skies, but I went for a walk along the railway to see what was worth taking. I liked the little branch with the blossom on it and I did see the fly, but I was impressed with the sharpness and the clarity and the fact that it was a colourful little hoverfly. The second shot was another lucky with another little fly hanging below the white flower (it’s a common mouse ear by the way – the flower, not the fly). Not as sharp as the blossom or the hoverfly, but still a decent shot. Check them out on my Flickr page. To think I drove about 10 miles and walked about 3 miles in the rain to get these shots. That’s what a 365 makes you do.

Today’s word was ANTISEMITISM. It has been bandied about on radio and tv since Ken Livingstone made his ill timed or cleverly calculated remark. It was while Scamp and I were watching the Andrew Marr program this morning that I thought is there such a thing as SEMITISM or is there only a negative version of the noun? It seems that everybody seems to have an opinion on this topic and everyone is desperate to have their opinion heard. It’s probably true that those who speak loudest have the least to say. I will say no more.

Went Out, Did Something – 29 March 2016

Posted on March 29, 2016 by Zogman

Yesterday was a bit of a wasted day and we were determined not to do the same today. I’d like to say we got up early and went out for a walk or a run or even to the gym, but we had breakfast in bed, then read for an hour or so, this after waking up about 9.15. However, after that we DID go out.

We couldn’t decide where to go at first with both of us making half-hearted suggestions. We finally settled on Hamilton, intending to walk through the Palace grounds to the Mausoleum. Hamilton is such an awful place to drive through, always has been with a convoluted one way system and stringent parking regulations, so rather that face that, I decided to take the Motherwell turn off and park in Strathclyde Park. From there we could walk to the Mausoleum if we wanted or walk part of the way around Strathclyde Loch. We chose the latter.

We started walking anticlockwise round this soulless man made sailing venue. It’s never been my favourite place to walk. At weekends it’s usually crowded with dog walkers, joggers and cyclists, oh, and hundreds of weans. At night it has a totally different reputation. It used to be a boy racers’ paradise, but the council speed bumps every 20 feet or so has put paid to that. Now it’s the secluded carparks that are venues for other sporting pursuits – or so I’m told 😉

I remember it when it was simply Motherwell Pond, away back in the ’60s. Then it was just a big pond in the middle of a field. It had the reputation then for holding the biggest pike in Scotland and I remember seeing some big fish taken there. Not by me though. If I was lucky I’d get a small perch or two. Now it’s just a big sterile expanse of water used by small boat sailors, the occasional windsurfer and canoeist. It also has an Olympic rowing course. Enough of the adverts, it’s a rich person’s playground. Proles like us just get to walk round it.

We walked round the south end of the loch and on past the man made beach. Just before that, I spotted a buzzard through a fence. It was sitting on a post in a timber yard just outside the park. I managed a few shots of it and it seemed quite happy to let me get near. Then a couple of seagulls started mobbing it and it flew off. When we were walking near the water and under some trees we were joined by clouds of wee black flies. I don’t know what they were, but as they only appeared when we were near the water, I assume they were water borne and had just hatched. Maybe spring is near after all. We walked as far as the Roman bath house which, if you read the description on the plaque is not original, but a reconstruction using modern materials. That’s a bit of a con I think, but what do you expect in North Lanarkshire? The South Calder Water runs in to the park at this point and just around a bend in it is the old Roman bridge. This is part reconstructed too, but there are no signs to tell you what it is and it’s fenced off so you can’t get across. Well, you could get on to it quite easily, but I suppose by fencing it off NLC exonerate themselves from any injury caused from falling from it. YOU WERE WARNED etc.

Walked back the same way we’d come and almost managed to get back to the car before the clouds opened and although we got wet, we didn’t get the soaking that we might had got if we’d caught the full downpour that arrived a couple of minutes later.

Tomorrow? Who knows. Hopefully we’ll GO OUT AND DAE SOMETHING again.

Sitting in the Sun – 19 March 2016

Posted on March 19, 2016March 19, 2016 by Zogman

Sitting in the sun for a couple of hours at Loch Lubnaig. Taking foties, doing sketches and being amazed at the difference a day makes. Yesterday, all was grey, but today there’s blue sky all around.

We couldn’t decide where to go today and last night had almost settled on a trip round the shops in Stirling. This morning when we saw the bright blue sky, we re-evaluated our options. Finally we settled on Callander with the option of travelling on to Lubnaig if the weather permitted. The weather did permit and we did take the Lubnaig option. We drew in at the first of the new parking places which are so much better maintained than the old ones where the dobbers would overnight camp from Friday to Sunday. Buckfast bottles and who knows what else left behind. The only good thing about it was that it was free, but you didn’t wander far from your car in case it was propped up on bricks when you came back. Those days are gone now, so are the dobbers and the Buckfast. Now you’ve got to pay to park, but £1 for two hours is worthwhile for peace of mind.

I had hoped to see the seaplane land on the loch, but I think that company has now moved to Loch Lomond. What we did see were mountain climbers on a ridge, canoeists on the loch and a beastie on my painting. First time for a long while I’ve painted in public. It wasn’t the best effort, but it was a sketch and it was in the open air – I won’t use that arty-farty French expression, but it was fun.

A lazier day – 22 August 2015

Posted on August 22, 2015August 23, 2015 by Zogman

Today was not a day at the gym, or the pool, or on the bike. Today was Saturday and a lazier day. We went to visit a friend down in Ayrshire and had a pleasant hour or so with her and her son. It’s a long time since we’ve seen them and it was really good to catch up. On the way back, we decided to visit Waitrose and spent a fortune. I think it must have been my jar of peanut butter and my slice of cheese that tipped us over the ‘expensive’ level. Anyway, as we hadn’t had a lunch and neither us could be bothered cooking, we decided to hand the expense and get a Chinese carry-out tonight. It was quite delicious. I had carried a camera with me all day and hadn’t used it once, so I decided to get the ‘weemen’ to pose for me tonight. Unfortunately I pressed the wrong button when choosing the correct mode on the camera and did a sort of ‘return to factory settings’ sort of thing and it took me over an hour to get it back working the way I had it. I won’t be making that mistake again.

I’m running a virus checker just now on my Mac. It’s been going for almost four hours now and has found seven pieces of malware of various kinds, every one a PC virus. Say what you like about Macs, but they don’t pick up as much malware and stuff as PCs. It’s amazing the number of invoices I’ve been sent and CVs I’ve been asked to read by kind people who only want me to open the attachments on their emails. I’ve got a friend who obviously did open one, because someone in Japan is now spoofing his email address. One last thing, Windoze 10 is no longer lounging around on the netbook. It got the bum’s rush today. Thankfully it didn’t take long to restore normal service, only about 15 minutes. Now the netbook looks as if it’s flying by comparison. It’s all relative in the end.

Long Live the Mac.

Walking to Twechar – 11 August 2015

Posted on August 11, 2015August 12, 2015 by Zogman

Today I burned Ecto. It is no more. Spent almost an hour writing up this blog and when I published it, all that was published was the title. Back in Ecto, the page was also totally blank. Ecto is shite. Last updated 5 years ago, the author isn’t interested in progressing it, just interested in making money. I can’t believe I actually spent money on it. I would not recommend it to anyone. I’m now looking for another blog writer that actually works. The best one I’ve found is made by Microsoft and won’t work on the Mac. Such a pity.

The day started well. Not the brightest, but at least I got a painting done. Went for a walk to Twechar along the railway and got some photos of a common blue butterfly. Not much else worth photographing. Came home and had a look at the Strawberry Vodka. It will probably be ready to drink tomorrow. This is the synopsis of the day which was going well until now.

Tomorrow is another day.

Still Raining – 28 July 2015

Posted on July 28, 2015July 28, 2015 by Zogman

Another rainy day. Went to the gym and found that Windows was trying to shut down the computer at the gym. It looked remarkably like the shut down screen on Windows 95! Only 20 years out of date. Anyway, when Scamp went to the gym later in the morning, someone was trying to breathe some life into the old system and was hoping to get outside help to do so. Maybe the system will be running by the end of the year.

I felt like I was getting cabin fever today, so hitched the bike on to the carrier and drove to Auchinstarry for a wet, but warm run along the railway line past Dumbreck Marshes and on to the canal tow path. While I was there I watched some bees buzzing around the flowers. I thought it would be a good test of the high speed ‘motor drive’ on the E-PL5. I remember a few years ago I was in a group of photogs where there was a challenge among us to see who who would be the first to catch an insect on the wing. Lots of heavy duty technology was being used, but nobody got that shot. Today with a second hand Oly E-PL5 and a second hand Panasonic lens, I got the shot. I don’t suppose the wager still stands.

Cycling away from home – 20 July 2015

Posted on July 20, 2015July 20, 2015 by Zogman

Well, today was the big test day for the bike carrier and it passed with flying colours. More below. Not a long drive today, but enough to make sure the carrier carried! Drove to Auchinstarry and parked there and cycled along the Forth and Clyde canal to Kirkintilloch then back again via Dumbreck Marshes. On the way there, for the first time ever, I think, I saw the bascule bridge at Twechar working. It was raised to allow a longboat to pass through heading east. Three or four motorists were standing looking a bit bemused as I was. However, it was a good morning and a pleasant way to pass some time. The canal towpath was quite quiet this morning, with only a few dog walkers and the occasional cyclist to block my way. On the way back, I took the detour through Dumbreck Marshes and managed a shot of a soldier beetle. I know it’s not really sharp, but it’s the expression on it’s face I like. It’s like “Are you looking at me?”, but it’s hard to second guess a beetle as Christopher Robin will tell you.

Back to the carrier. It’s a Saris Solo and as you can imagine from the name, it’s for only one bike. Suits me fine as Scamp doesn’t cycle. The other novel feature of the Solo is that it’s made from plastic. Surprisingly, it’s really quite strong with lots of reinforcing fins inside the structure. Another innovation is that there are only four nylon bands that hold the rack on the car – two at the top and two at the bottom. They seem to hold it securely to the boot but it will need a little more testing to give it a longer test on a longer drive. So far, I’m impressed and willing to take it on that longer drive. I’ll keep you posted.