Brassica

So far this week a couple of skilled and influencial musicians have departed this mortal coil. It's not as if I knew them personally, and I am not 'saddened' by the loss in the way I am when a friend or relative goes. But there is a weird thing that goes on when someone who created something that you love and enjoy departs. Dave Greenfield was the highly skilled and talented keyboardist with The Stranglers, and Florian Schneider was the co-founder of Kraftwerk, surely one of the most influencial bands ever created.

Enough of the maudlin stuff, here's a cheerful and, if I say so myself, thoroughly wonderful image of a Blackbird I took today. I use the term image rather than photo deliberately and will explain why later.

This morning I endured an MRI, which I'm actually starting to find quite therapeutic rather than claustrophobic. After catching up and setting the world alight in the home office, later in the afternoon I headed down the lane for the third day on the trot. I know, three daily outings in three days rather than the previous three in three weeks. For all it faults (crap verge and hedgerow 'management' by the farmer, unsightly but necessary ditch management by the farmer, flytipping by complete fucking arseholes) I like the lane.

Looking north-west back towards the estate.

Looking south-west ish.

Before I got to that bit though, I had a look around this bit ....

A pull in looking due-west, where idiots keep dumping garden waste. And worse.

I only looked there as on the left out of shot there is a fallen branch in the hawthorn/elm tangle that often has flies on it. I then walked to the gate to have a squint, and right down in the left corner is a pathetically small clump of Garlic Mustard. This clump.

As I went to try and take a photo of a fly on the hawthorn, I noticed something on the garlic - no way, surely not .... I grabbed a quick photo and realised the camera was on the wrong settings ....

I got the camera sorted, went to get a proper photo and bugger me, I knocked them off never to be seen again. So there I am, elated at seeing my first ever Brassica Shieldbugs, amazed that they were so close to home, and completely pissed off that I'd screwed it right up. I've been wanting to see this species for a long while, but not enough to ever work out how/where I might find them. It's only earlier this year that I discovered that garlic mustard was a likely place to find it, and on the last couple of walks down the railway line with a net I made an effort to sweep properly big swathes of it without success. And here they were sitting in the open, in cop, and I ......

I was completely demoralised by that but carried on anyway and managed to cheer myself up by pointing the camera at a few other bits with better results, despite the fierce direct bright sunshine .....

Dock Bug

Harpocera thoracica

Common Malachite Beetle

Common Pheasant

House Sparrow

I have a few others for another day too. After walking for a while, I headed home and decided I might as well have another look at the clump, given that all the others I'd checked were bare. Amazingly I was in luck as (presumably) the same pair were back in view.

Brassica Shieldbug - a bit more like it should have been in the first place!

Back to that Blackbird image. Here's the unadulterated photo complete with the gaffer-taped TV ariel that is on one of my neighbours roof .....

And here's the same vista with the camera fully zoomed out rather than in ...

I shit you not! I'm very pleased with my stupidly long zoom and my photoshop skills.