Tawny Out

Yesterday was my second chemo IV session. It took 7 hours or so, including waiting time and a reduced rate/increased time administering of the cytotoxic chemical. My left arm was no less painful, and I've only started to get the use of it back this morning. PICC line being planned for the remaining x6 sessions which will alleviate this arm numbing discomfort.

As it took so long, it was properly dark and around 7:15pm as I left the building to be picked up. Just as I was between the building and car park I could hear a Tawny Owl calling, apparently from the roof of the building I'd just left. I looked around but saw nothing whilst the calls continued. The calls then seemed to drift off south-east of where I was. And where I was was here, just c100meters north of my 5MR area boundary. Still, even if the bird was in it, or flew into it, I was out of it.

That stadium is where the Tigers chase the wrong-shaped ball. Badly in recent seasons.

On the face of it, a built up hospital on the outskirts of the City is not the place for a Tawny Owl, but pulling back on the zoom shows a few places it could roost and feed ....

Left - right: Nelson Mandela Park, Welford Cemetery, Victoria Park

Actually it was good to realise that a decent chunk of the cemetery and the best birding bit of Victoria Park are in the 5MR area.

Later this afternoon, after trying my best to get some work done one-handed before gradually getting both arms back, I had a half hour potter on the front garden. I couldn't last much longer, as the chemo I'm on also makes you sensitive to cold for a few days. Even though it was mild and I had gloves on the tingling sensation increased and the inside of my nose was stinging.

I found a couple of Psychidae cases on the front garden wall - which I've not found on here before. I think one has to be Narycia duplicella, certainly the most likely species though it doesn't look quite right and actually looks a bit like a Dahlica sp. so I I'll try and pot it up to check/rear. The other was probably Luffia lapidella f. ferchaultella, but it was clearly a damaged or old case. So neither added to the list as yet.

I also remembered that I'd noticed a Vapourer egg batch earlier in Jan but forgot to snap and add. Actually today I found four more. As this species overwinters as the egg, and most of these look intact, it should be okay to add to the list.

A number of lichens that I haven't ever tried to sort out are on that wall, I've snapped some to ponder over for another day. I expect all are common and being on walls and mortar limits the candidates.

Having found one on the window ledge, I found a number of globular Dicyrtomina saundersi today on the underside of stones - never seen them in the garden before this week, which is either down to not looking hard enough or they have genuinely moved in recently.

I also snapped an Orchesella cincta that was on the wall ....

Nothing else identifiable, and it was probably a few hours too late in the day - I'll have another look around earlier tomorrow.

This small spider appeared to be carting a parasitic wasp larvae around ....

.... and there were a couple of Dipterans that would need properly keying and checking.

A Chironomid, quite possibly Chironomus plumosus.

And I believe one of the Mycetophilidae 'Fungus Gnats', possibly a Dynatosoma sp. I did try to pot this but it evaded the cack-handed effort.

Here's some proper nostalgic breakbeat stuff from before the enforced name change ....