Floodland

A late posting, because I've been busy with pots full of inverts in front of the PC / microscope / camera. Late this afternoon, after leaving work early today, I managed to grab an hour or so at Huncote Embankment. I was hoping to sieve out some beetles from flood debris. I wasn't expecting that the floods would have resurged, but the writing was on the wall when I noticed the sheep in the now-narrow field alongside the entrance track ......

Sure enough, when I got the pond and boardwalk it was flooded.

Or so it seemed. In fact, on the far side of the pool - ironically between the pool and the river - there was enough dry(ish) land to have a mooch about.

I had a good root around and sieved dead grasses / tussocks, steadily filling a few pots along the way. I then headed up to the top of the embankment to walk back along the gorse-lined track overlooking the quarry.

Whilst up there I tapped the gorse as I walked along, gradually filling up more pots. 'So where is the evidence of all this pot filling?' I hear you ask. Well that'll wait as I've got more to work through and, actually, getting photos of tiny stuff in the evening is not viable unless it is deceased - and I think I've sniffed too much ethyl acetate for one night.

One I will share now though is a new for me weevil tapped from gorse .....

Andrion regensteinense - look at the spiky bristles on that!

I've been listening to a lot of the Sisters lately, including Floodland appropriately:

Into The Valley

Here's a few shots from a sunny North Devon on 25/04/2011 - Valley of the Rocks near to Lynmouth. A great place for a pleasant family walk with breathtaking scenery, Feral Goats and Exmoor Ponies and even on a hot sunny Bank Holiday Monday there were very few people. Understand there is a lot of local politics and consternation about the goats, though they have been wandering about places such as this for hundreds of years so wonder why it is only now becoming a problem when the odd garden plant gets eaten down in the town.

Train Tracks & Visuals

Last week was spent travelling to and back from Nancy in France via rail (Leics - London, Eurostar, TGV and back) or attending meetings with evening meals and socialising. Barely any time to have a look around other than a brief bit of sight-seeing in Nancy on Tuesday afternoon - see here for a few shots.

I probably could have seen a few things from the trains had I not been either engrossed in working on the laptop, watching films on the i-Touch or listening to music with eyes wide shut. Only avian interest was Black Redstarts (a couple noted on the tops of very impressive architecture in Nancy) and surprisingly (for me at least) loads of Ring-necked Parakeets in the local park.

So, here's a taste of what I was listening to or watching ..

Fields of the Nephilim - great music, pantomime videos

Angel Heart - awesome 80s classic

Sisters of Mercy - thumping drum machine on this track

V For Vendetta - eloquent terrorism

Siouxsie and the Banshees - still sounding great

Watchmen - super heroic