Category: insects

Maybe the last sunny day – 5 June 2022

Posted on by Zogman

A bit of a lazy, sunny Sunday, but it looks like it’s downhill for the weather now.

Spoke to Hazy in the morning and caught up on all that was happening with them and the extended family. Neither of them feeling fully fit yet, but that’s to be expected. Sometime you just have to take things a bit easier and let the world turn at its rate.

We started out doing a bit of gentle garden work under a warm sun, but with a cool breeze. For me, today’s work meant pruning away seed heads on the aquilegia just to make sure they don’t seed everywhere as they did last year, dead heading the lupins, and checking that we hadn’t lost any peas, kale or leeks over the past couple of days. It looks to me as if I’ve already lost a pea plant, but there was no sign of slug trails, so maybe it was one of the hungry birds that had done the dirty on me. I’ll maybe do my mum’s trick and stretch some black cotton thread across the raised bed. Scares the living daylights out of the birds! Scamp, of course was right in there in the front garden, digging out weeds and cutting down excess growth in the bushes.

Soon it was lunch time and after that, Scamp went walking down to the shops to get some stuff for tonight’s dinner while I prepared mine. Today I was cooking some diced pork I’d bought months ago. Neither of us had any experience of cooking it, so I stuck fairly close to a recipe I’d downloaded from BBC Food. Basically you fried off the meat to start with and put it in a slow cooker, then it was the turn of some bacon to be fried and added to the slow cooker next the veg was cooked and added with an uncooked peeled, cored and chopped apple. Finally, in went about half a bottle of cider, some herbs and some water and half a chicken stock cube. Put the lid on and cook on low for six hours, it said. I didn’t have six hours, so I cooked it on auto for about four hours and the meat was falling off the fork when it came out.

While Scamp rested I went out with a macro lens on the camera hoping to see that dragonfly again. My backup was some yellow flag irises that I reckoned would be in flower by now. No dragonfly to be seen, but the irises were beautiful. They got PoD I also found that the newly sown grass football park behind St Mo’s school has some lovely wee red poppies in with the grass seed.

Spoke to Jamie later and heard all about bat investigations and preparations for exiting his present employment to head for pastures new. Never easy, although I must say that it’s a very long time since I had to do that. Some time around 1980 I believe!

Tomorrow I think I’m taking the wee Red car down to the village to see about a new exhaust.

Finally getting my hands dirty – 3 June 2022

Posted on by Zogman

About time too!

Went out this morning to get some bread from Tesco and hopefully post some photos to Hazy. The bread was no problem, but the post office was shut, as was the local one in Condorrat. Don’t blame me, blame Mrs McQueen and her Platignum Jubbly holiday. Ok, if I’d posted the parcel yesterday it wouldn’t have been a problem, but I didn’t. I still blame Mrs McQueen for it. If not her, then Boris. That’s the obvious fall back, Blame Boris.

Came home with the beautifully wrapped parcel and a loaf plus a couple of bars of chocolate for being a good boy. With that done, and not done, we started in the garden. I found a single pea had germinated from the five I’d planted in the raised bed, so I carefully dug it out and put it aside. Then I added some compost to the raised bed to replace all the stuff I’d dug out since the end of last years growing season. After that, this year’s planting could begin.

I planted four peas, plus the pea I’d recovered earlier in the back row of the raised bed. Next line was four curly kale plants. While I was planting them, I found what looked like another kale plant left over from last year. It turned out to be a piece of kale stem with a little green leaf sprouting from the middle of it. There was no sign of any root on what you might call a cutting, but the leaf looked healthy. Just for luck, I planted it with the rest of the kale. Next line was four leeks and that was the raised bed about full.

I’d five leeks left, so I emptied out last year’s plant pot that held about six leeks. Chucked half of the compost away and all the leek roots. Mixed what was left with some fresh composts and refilled the pot, then planted the remaining five leeks in the pot. Watered everything in as all the gardening programmes say you should and left then to sink or swim. Meanwhile, Scamp was potting up her new hydrangea and rearranging other plants to give them a better chance of catching some sunshine.

At that point, I felt I’d done more than enough gardening, so I grabbed a camera and a 105mm macro and went over to St Mo’s hoping to see a dragonfly I’d seen yesterday. I didn’t find it, but what I did find was a lazy Large Red damselfly which was compliant enough to sit there while I took a few photos of it. One of them made PoD.

Dinner tonight was a pizza we bought in Sainsbury’s yesterday and very nice it was too. Sainsbury’s always have produced good pizzas.

We may be dancing tomorrow or we may not. It seems there are only two couples definitely going to class. Hopefully we’ll find out in the morning. Mrs McQueen has a lot to answer for, I’ll tell you that, her and her Platignum Jubbly celebration.

The morning after – 29 May 2022

Posted on by Zogman

Thankfully I hadn’t had a lot to drink on Saturday, but even so, I did feel better after a shower in the hotel room’s wet-room.

We had a breakfast, the high point of which was watermelon chunks, there was no other fruit option. Dried up sausages, leathery bacon and tasteless black pudding. To quote Scamp “It filled a wee space”. We handed in our keys and drove home.

Travelling over the Kingston Bridge at around 10.30am is quite a delight, compared to the usual mile and a half of stop-go traffic jam that greets us any time after about 11am. For once I had nothing to complain about.

Back home we unloaded the car and Scamp loaded the washing machine, then we had lunch.

After that and after deciding we would eat out of the freezer today, I took a camera and the big macro lens out for a walk in St Mo’s and saw a blue flash when I was walking across the boardwalk. It was a damselfly. A Common Blue. The first one I’d seen this year, and a welcome sight. That made PoD. A walk in the woods couldn’t improve on that picture, so I headed home.

Watched a scary Monaco GP which started under the safety car in full wet conditions and ended with a fairly interesting last few laps. One scary looking crash when Mick Schumacher’s car hit the barrier and split into two. It’s testament to the fitness of these young drivers and to the safety features of modern F1 cars.

Spoke to Jamie later and heard about their short visit to Germany for a wedding and his twisted ankle. Compared and contrasted our gardens and weather. He sounded almost as tired as we felt.

I’d a few photos to look through, about 150 to work through, weeding out the weak and out of focus ones, but really not a bad haul from Saturday’s wedding on a camera that’s a pretty old design and a lens that’s not rated by anyone except me, I think. I’d been using the A6000 and the kit lens. Hoping to get a cheap memory stick tomorrow to stick the photos on for John & Marion.

A wee dram later for me and a rum ’n’ coke for Scamp to help us get a decent night’s sleep.

Tomorrow we may do some grass cutting if the weather stays dry.

A bit of a wasted day – 12 May 2022

Posted on by Zogman

Both of us lay in bed reading this morning after yesterday’s busy day.

Finally we did get up because Scamp wanted to go to Tesco to use up two of her Covid vouchers. One voucher was being spent on our ‘essentials’ like wine, gin and food. The other was going on real essentials that were going into the Food Bank box. Both vouchers were spent and a little more besides.

While she was out I was just mooching around the house with little to do and no real incentive to go out. I tried reading for a while, then managed to complete yesterday’s Sudoku (today’s is sitting beside me, unfinished as yet). It was one of those days that somehow didn’t encourage you get up and go and do something, anything! Eventually lunch solved that problem. I made myself an omelette and Scamp had a piece ’n’ cheese with spicy beetroot.

After lunch and having spraying myself with bug repellant I went for a walk in St Mo’s with one camera and one lens. It’s something Alex and I have been discussing and it does make you think about what you’re using and what you’re photographing. My lens of choice was the Lensbaby Sweet 35. I was hoping against hope that I’d find something interesting to photograph. That something turned out to be a Salmonberry flower. It became PoD. A little further along the path I found a couple of black flies making more black flies. It was a case of crawl on your knees and get as close as the little 35mm lens will allow. Actually it turned out ok. The only problem is that it was black flies on a black tarmac, so colour choices went out the window. You can see it on Flickr.

By the time I came home I was feeling a bit rough and decided to post the photos and write the blog early, then go to bed. That’s still what I intend to do. I’ve dosed myself up with Vitamin C and I’m going to have a ‘hot toddy’ tonight and go to bed after this is posted. It’s nothing serious, just a summer cold.

I made dinner tonight and it was a very nice Prawn & Pea Risotto. The risotto paddle really does work Hazy, as I’m sure you knew it would.

We watched the first episode of this year’s Glow Up. Absolute nonsense. Very clever nonsense, but you begin to wonder after a while if these people are real! If you haven’t watched it before, get it on iPlayer and have a good laugh.

That’s about it for today. Hoping to feel a lot better tomorrow. A long walk in the fresh air somewhere might help.

Photo Album – 4 May 2022

Posted on by Zogman

Photo albums were so much easier in the olden days.

Today we spent a bit of the morning and half of the afternoon making up a photo book of our recent trip down south. In the olden days, you took your film to the chemist who developed and printed it and handed it back to you in a neat little cardboard folder. Then you bought a photo album and a packet of Lick and Stick corners and used them to hold the photos in place. Usually this meant that the next day when you opened the album the photos all fell out. Either that or the pages had become stuck together by the Lick and Stick corners and then you tore the page when frustration took over.

Now you simply have to upload all your photos to an online company, decide what format of book you want and how many photos you want to add, then the hard work of arranging them is done automatically. The problems come when you want to move things around. No longer do you simply unclip them, replace them with another photo and then find a new place to put the old one. Now you have to consider the size and shape of every photo and sometimes the AI automatic formatter gets it a bit wrong and portrait shots get chopped into landscape and vice versa. It all seems to take a lot longer than the happy smiley company video shows it. That’s why it took us about three hours, with a break for lunch, to get things the way we wanted them. The book is to show off a new house to the folks up in Skye, because books are so much easier to look at than a tablet, aren’t they? Hopefully it will be printed and in their hands in no time.

After that collaboration, we split up. Scamp went to the shops to get stuff for tonight’s dinner and I headed over to Condorrat to post an envelope. Of course I took my camera with me and caught a fly with its beady little glass eye and that became PoD. Just an ordinary fly, because I haven’t seen any damselflies yet and very few hover flies.

It was a cold wind today, but if you found shelter, the sun was warm.

Oh yes, and May the Fourth have been with you today!

Tomorrow we’re booked to go and see Margie. Also hoping my new camera bag will arrive at WEX in Glasgow without a birthday card for a stranger in it this time!

Posh Lunch – 16 April 2022

Posted on by Zogman

Another sunny day and we were being taken for lunch.

Wandered round the garden in the morning then Jamie drove us to Bury St Edmonds for lunch at Maison Bleu and what a lunch. Here goes!

Starter
Scamp: A Beetroot Gateau which really did look like a slice of Tipsy Cake.
Jamie & Simonne: Seared Isle of Orkney King Scallop, Chicken Wings, artichoke, Pancetta and Chicken Jus.
Me: Slow braised Beef Cheek, Lettuce Ravioli, Carrot Crisp Kohlrabi with carrot and Curcuma sauce.
Main
Scamp: Isle of Gigha Halibut, celery gel, nori seaweed powder, fish sauce grilled leek and broccoli.
Simonne: Fillet of Aberdeen Angus beef, Maury wine sauce, Celeriac, Roscoff Onion Confit, Béarnaise espuma, and salt fermented celeriac.
Jamie: Roasted Balotine of saddle and leg of Rabbit, reduction sauce, shallot confit, Jerusalem artichoke and chervil.
Me: Roasted haunch of Breckland venison, Tornatore black olive sauce, black potato purée and parsnip.
Dessert
Scamp: Pear with Honeycomb (which I’d have called Puff Candy).
Jamie & Simonne: Opera Gateau.
Me: My dessert was called, simply, Apple. It looked like a shiny red apple, but when you cut into it with a spoon it crunched like an old fashioned candy apple. Inside was an apple mousse.
We washed all the foregoing down with a bottle of wine which Scamp chose but Jamie chose instead to have a bottle of beer.

Really quite an excellent and very posh lunch. Many photos were taken of the food as befits foodies like us and many stories will be told about it in the future, I hope.

We had a gentle walk round the outskirts of the centre of Bury St Edmonds before Jamie drove us home where we sat in the garden and admired the sunset over the church. I found a miner bee digging in the grass at the back of the house. The first time I’ve seen one of those. The insects down south have been an eye opener for me.

PoD was a picture of the church taken when we arrived back at the house after our lunch.

Tomorrow we may be doing some gardening.

Another beautiful day – 21 March 2022

Posted on by Zogman

Almost wall to wall sunshine today, although the old weather station in the living room and also my little weather device in my alarm clock were both predicting rain that never came.

It was very relaxing, doing today’s Wordle and catching up with my Sudoku and reading, with sunshine streaming in the front windows. In fact it was so relaxing, neither of us wanted to do very much at all until lunch time.

After that, Scamp went off to the shops to get some oranges and apples and I eventually got my act together and went looking for photos in St Mo’s. I managed to capture my first fly of the year and my first spider. Both separated by a couple of meters, so no insects were injured as part of the photography process. However, with a little bit of back lighting, it was a couple of leaves from a Dogwood bush that got PoD. I just liked the colours in the translucent leaves (which are really shields for the flower buds) and the textures in the background. While I was away, Scamp had returned and couldn’t just sit around, so she strimmed the grass in the front garden.

I also brought back a tick. The first this year. It is now much flatter than it was when I found it and also much deader. That’s what happens when you ignore the obvious fact that you have to keep using preventative measures. I’ll order some Smidge tonight.

Not long after I came back, the clouds started to gather and it looked like the weather stations would be right after all, but it didn’t happen. It was just a bit of light cloud the weather man said. His idea of light and mine don’t quite line up I think. These were big clumsy looking clouds, but it seems they’ve passed by now.

Tonight’s dinner was the remainder of yesterday’s veggie chilli. Scamp had added some more chilli powder and it had a better kick today. Still the best veggie chilli ever, I think.

That was our lazy day. Not a lot done, but sometimes you don’t need to do a lot. Tomorrow Scamp has an appointment with the dentist in the afternoon. Our morning is might be free.

A walk in the wilds – 7 March 2022

Posted on by Zogman

My first walk in and around Fannyside for a while.

Scamp was out to lunch with The Witches and I was like a knotless thread. It was another beautiful day and I didn’t want to spend it in the house. Nor did I fancy sitting in a car going somewhere, only to find I had half an hour there before driving back home. I chose to go to Fannyside Moor. Lots of big sky and silence. Not total silence, you understand. No, there was the soughing of wind in the pine trees and the distant sound of cars and vans on the single track road across the moor itself. There were sheep bleating somewhere and most joyous of all, I listened to a lark ascending. Not the Vaughan Williams piece, but a real lark, really ascending into a clear blue sky.

I’d parked at my usual place, on a rough bit of earth by a gate, but not blocking the gate and between two stands of Scots Pines. It’s on a ninety degree corner, but off the road. Just as well, because this is a single track road, just wide enough for a van or a tractor, but not nearly wide enough for two cars to pass without one or other losing a wing mirror. My kit for today was Sony A7iii with 105mm macro lens (just in case), kit lens and 18mm super wide. Actually that’s almost all my lenses. I’ve got others, but they are mainly mounted on adapters and that’s more to carry, too much.

I walked roughly east first almost as far as the farm, but not quite. Farms = dogs = trouble. Best avoided if possible. Halfway along the road I met a grumpy looking woman driving what an old Australian pen pal called a Ute. A four wheel drive go anywhere beefed up jeep. A utility vehicle. I climbed the verge to let her through, but she didn’t acknowledge me at all. I think she thought she owned Fannyside. Maybe she did. She slowed right down to have a good look at the Blue car, then drove on for a bit and stopped again. I think now she was checking that I wasn’t dumping rubbish, fly tipping. I hadn’t. I walked on, she drove on. I got some photos of lichen that covered some of the old fence posts. I also took some landscape shots. Then another car came the other way. Another Ute, another woman driver, but this one gave me a cheery wave as she passed. I’d walked as far as I wanted. Took some sheep photos then walked back.

Turned 90º and walked south until the cold north west breeze got a bit of an edge to it and I walked back to the car. Not far from it I spotted what looked like a pebble on a fence post and examination showed it to be a ladybird, a dark brown one with white spots. I remembered seeing one here before. I tried a few shots, but there was nothing to lean on or to give me some support. A walk back to the car brought a tripod. The flexible Benbo. Hated by many, but loved by those who persevere with its idiosyncrasies. It’s a steep learning curve getting the best out of it, but it’s a great bit of kit. Almost rock solid on most surfaces, todays thick matted grass was a challenge. Eventually I used it as a monopod and got the shots.

Back home, Scamp had returned from the lunch. I decided it was time the Blue car had a wash and as the day was still warm out of the wind, I took brush and bucket and got rid of the road muck from the last few weeks. I even gave Scamp’s wee red car a scrub too.

Fired up the computer and got the shots processed. At first I thought I’d captured images of a Cream Spot Ladybird, but then after a bit more investigation it turned out it was. Striped Ladybird (Myzia oblongoguttata). It was more a maroon colour than brown and it’s fairly clear to see that they are indeed stripes and not spots. Something new learned today.

Scamp didn’t need any dinner, but I baked the second Fougasse so she could try it while I had the leftover stew from yesterday. Unfortunately, on her second bite she cracked another part of her damaged tooth. Tomorrow she’s going to bend the truth a bit and get the dentist to fix it. Something he should have done months ago. If he won’t do it, I think we might go private again. It’s the way the country is going these days.

I was quite please with my ladybird photos and it was one of them that made PoD.

Tomorrow after we hopefully resolve the dental problem we may go out for a walk.

Back in the saddle – 11 January 2022

Posted on by Zogman

After yesterday’s little hissy fit, I’ve returned to the 365 proper.

It does get difficult sometimes to keep finding interesting subjects to photograph, but it’s important to remember the associated benefits. It gets me out in the fresh air, although it also ensures that I spend more time than I should in post processing. It keeps the little grey cells working and when I do get a good photo, or find something I thought I’d lost, like today, it does feel good.

The day didn’t start well. We went to a funeral for a girl I don’t remember meeting. She was the daughter-in-law of one of Scamp’s oldest friends. Funerals are never pleasant occasions, but when it’s for someone with her whole life still to live, it’s worse than normal. That’s all I’m going to say, except I have never seen the chapel at Daldowie as full as it was this morning.

Drove home in blinding sunshine and got on with the day. The sunshine mellowed a bit as the day progressed, but there was still blue sky up there and there was directional light. I took a camera for a walk, while Scamp stayed home and read. I was framing a shot through some trees when I thought I saw a ladybird on a tree beyond my framed shot. It was indeed an orange ladybird with white spots. Possibly the one I’ve been looking for since about November. It was still tucked up neatly in a knot in the trunk. This time I know which tree to look for. It’s the one two trees east of the one with the stick. You’ll know it when you see it, well, you won’t but I will.

That ladybird changed the complexion of the day completely. Unfortunately, none of the photos I took did it justice, so it didn’t get PoD. That award went to an orange coloured leaf, beautifully textured and almost translucent when seen against the light. There is another photo on Flickr that I worked on a tiny little bit tonight. It dates from September 2005, over sixteen years ago! It’s worth a look.

Scamp made Carrot and Lentil Curry tonight. It’s not he hottest curry in the world, but what it lacks in heat, it makes up for in taste. An old favourite.

I don’t think it’s going to be as good a day weatherwise tomorrow, but we may go out again for a spin. Need to get a wall calendar some time soon!

Out in the morning again – 7 December 2021

Posted on by Zogman

The weather didn’t look too clever, but then, neither am I. So I went out.

It was really dull this morning. In fact it turned out to be really dull all day. I took two cameras, but ended up only really using the small A6000. As insurance I took my Gorilla pod and was glad I did. I found a patch of Stag Horn fungus on a well rotted log. Light was really low already and it was only 11am. Since there was no wind to move the fungus, I could use the Gorilla pod on the ground to hold the camera and take the shot at a very low shutter speed but an equally low ISO. That gave me a sharp smooth photo in very low light. Suffice to say that I only took one shot and was satisfied that I had a potential PoD.

With one in the bag, I went for a walk in the woods and to my surprise I found a ladybird hibernating deep in a crevice in a tree. It was a 14 spot Orange Ladybird (Halyzia sedecimguttata). I’ve seen them before in the woods, in fact for the last two years I’ve seen them hibernating from November through to March. I had to get a photo, but the 50mm lens was a wee bit short for the task and I couldn’t use my Gorilla pod on the tree to steady the camera. I eventually got a reasonable image after hiking up the ISO to noisy levels.

By this time the rain was starting, so I put the hood up on my Bergy and walked home. As I was getting near to the house, the rain changed to sleet and the temperature was dropping. I was just taking my jacket off in the house when I looked out the window and it was snowing. Big fat flakes of the white stuff. We weren’t due any snow until nearly midnight, this isn’t what we signed up to. Never mind, it was tomato soup for lunch and it tasted good. Felt warm again. I think it’s the colour of the soup as much as the taste that makes you feel warm. Whatever it is, it worked.

After lunch I drove Scamp to the dentist through the sleet that had come after the snow, and then drove to Tesco to get some messages. I was just at the checkout when I got the phone call to say she was ready to come home. This was a lot earlier than we’d anticipated, but there was a reason for that. She hadn’t got her tooth fixed. The dentist had examined it and told her she’d need to come back to have the work done. The appointment is for the 25th of February 2022! That’s three months in the future!! Of course, Covid was blamed for the delay. They are short staffed just now and they need to wipe down all the surfaces after a consultation, etc, etc. She still had to pay for the ‘consultation’ though. Really it’s getting ridiculous now. Three months wait to get a tooth fixed. Maybe we need a different dentist.

I drove back and picked up Scamp who was just disappointed, but resigned to her wait. I looked at my photos from the morning with the occasional glance outside, but the sleet had stopped and the sky was actually lightening, but it didn’t last. The sun was low on the horizon now and night was closing in.

Dinner tonight was a Scamp speciality, Chicken, Mushrooms and Rice. It was ages since we’d had it and it tasted great. Posted my photos early, which was lucky, because Flickr is down now. And the fungus did get PoD.

Ordered myself a new-to-me lens mainly for the A6000 it’s a Sony 55-210mm zoom. Not best quality, but it’s got built in anti-shake and I can afford it. Coming on Friday hopefully.

Jamie phoned tonight to say that his interview in Doncaster had gone quite well and he was satisfies with his performance. Now he has to wait until January. It seems that everyone has to wait for something these days.

No plans for tomorrow. Threats of heavy snow overnight have been removed, but will the snow know that? We’ll have to wait for that too!