I had a few days over in the Netherlands last week for some European football
(albeit in the new third tier UEFA Europa Conference League, though we're in good
company having already put out Rennes and not beating PSV Eindhoven in their home ground, with Roma coming up in the semi-finals).
It's the first time I've travelled overseas since our Caribbean cruise in
2018, thanks to health issues and covid. Of course it was also the first
post-Brexit experience in a European airport as a non-EU traveller .... Glad I
don't have a need to travel for work anymore.
Whilst away the weather turned properly warm and sunny for a few days, though
over the couple of nights that I've had the trap out since getting home you'd
not think it. Poor catches and not much variety as yet.
Oak-tree Pug
Golden-rod Pug
A typically duff looking individual - abdominal plates checked.
Least Black Arches
Dromius meridionalis
The first non-lep in the trap that I've bothered to point the camera at so
far this year
I've got some time off of work next week too, though we'll mainly be
planting up our new raised beds and nipping down to Devon for a quick visit.
A few weeks ago I collected a tenanted Taleporia tubulosa case from
Kinchley Lane alongside Swithland Res. I've never had much success with these
before, either no emergence or just a grubby female. At last I had a bit of
luck when this emerged on 12th May ....
I've run the garden trap a couple of times, but it's really not happening! Feels
like one of the worst spring periods I can remember, certainly for a few years.
I checked out a caddisfly from 9th May, and snapped a couple of NFY moths.
Limnephilus sparsus
Brindled Beauty
Silver Y
I recently got around to sorting out a vascular plant list for the garden,
which is almost certainly not complete but includes everything I can
attribute to a date/photo. I've added the paltry list to my Garden Lists
tab, and almost as soon as I'd done that I've found a couple of new plants
for the garden. We've completely let the garden go so far this spring, still
thinking it would be dug up soon only to find that the landscaper who let us
down last year has done it again - looking for a new one but there seems to
be a real issue with materials etc which is hampering efforts. I know we
should do it ourselves but I really haven't got the skills, energy or time
to do it justice. In the meantime, the lawn especially is popping up
wildflowers that have probably been there for years but never getting the
chance to get their heads above the mower. The two new species are
a Teasel growing next to the fence - likely from seed in
bird-droppings, and a few spikes of Common Mouse-ear in the lawn
(away from the Sticky Mouse-ear I found a couple of weeks ago that is more
prolific).
Teasel
Common Mouse-ear
Sticky Mouse-ear
Despite my inability to get my head around the Vegetative Key that I bought
early last year, I've gone and bought a similar key to grasses.
I gave it a whirl with some garden stems and got to Perennial Rye-grass, which
is probably right but I was far from confident. I think I need to try and work
through a couple of grasses that I know (or at least think I know) and take it
from there. Crucially, this key requires non-flowering stems (tillers).
I need to go back and have another look at the hawthorn galls in the week I
found as I may have cocked that up; there is a very similar fungal gall and
the aphids I saw may have been incidental (on the leaf, not inside the gall).
Remember me saying good things happen for LCFC when Selby wins the World
Championships? What a fantastic day out yesterday, almost like getting back to
normality and a massive personal boost on coping with life post-surgery.
Sealing the win and seeing the cup lifted by the Chairman Top Aiyawatt
Srivaddhanaprabha was emotional. A properly run Club with the fans and
community at the heart. Hopefully we can seal a Champions League place and
enjoy another European Tour next season ....
I managed to head out for a bit of a walk this afternoon after a GP Surgery
appointment, and I decided I'd head up to the northern stretch of Aylestone
Meadows within my 5MR. One thing I realised quite a while ago is that I should
have made an effort to sort out some sort of route-tracking app. on my phone
that would trace my steps and calc. the distances this year during my square
and 5MR walks. I remember this every time I'm out, when it's too late to
bother, and I guess there's not much point starting now. Today's walk was only
c2.5miles in any case.
Here's an aerial map showing the route:
The red dot is the starting point at the car park; I followed the River
Soar/Grand Union Canal along the cyan dots up to the King Power stadium;
retraced my steps to the green dots following the River Biam and a boardwalk
pathway, then back to the car park along the yellow dots.
I had my bins and camera, and set out in what were mainly bright and sunny
conditions albeit still very cold. By the time I turned my back on the KP and
headed back it was clouding over, and by the time I was on the yellow dots it
had just started snowing again. We've had snow flurries every day since Sunday
night, albeit mainly light.
The first stretch followed the tow path along the converged River Soar/Grand
Union Canal. As you'd expect from an inner-city waterway, there are more
graffiti-laden buildings, bridges and locks than scenic views ....
The melt evident on this bridge may be short-lived given the forecast -5C
tonight!
Before long the glorious vista that is the KP came into view opposite Freemens
Meadow Lock and the weir.
Up until this point, the bird interest was limited to say the least. Nothing
but the odd Mallard, Moorhen and Mute Swan along the canal, and no sniff of a
dashing iridescent blue streak. But, just whilst I was fannying about between
phone and camera, a Raven was briefly in view soaring over the KP, the
first new 5MR bird of the day. A quick scan on the water below the weir
revealed another couple of yearticks, 15 Teal and 5
Little Grebes - albeit requiring full zoom on the camera.
A fourth year tick was a bit nearer, though perhaps less photogenic in the
great scheme of things ....
I was a little bemused at the antics of one of the Moorhens, which was
hopping along a row of large orange buoys that act as some sort of barrier in
front of the weir - a bit like that shite TV programme Ninja Warrior. It only
stopped hopping when it got to what must have been a particularly appealing
pile of gull shite to peck at ....
I also felt obliged to point the camera at these majestic beasts, clearly a
cold-weather movement from the fields of East Anglia ....
The walk back was a little precarious in places, as the rivers had clearly
flooded big sections of the meadows previously, but there is a long stretch of
boardwalk that made for better walking once on it. The scenery was better on
this route, but with the cloud cover increasing and snow starting to fall
there was not much chance of adding anything else new.
When I got back to the car park, one of the clumps of Mistletoe (actually not
that common in Leics. but there is a fair bit here) showed expected movement.
During the time I've been constructing this image-heavy post, the delivery man
has brought the TG-6 I ordered on Monday. I've got plenty of time to not read
the manual (I've never read any camera manual), plug it in and see what's what
before I'll have a chance to poke it in front of some small invert or other.
Tonight though, fittingly given the walk today, I'll be watching LCFC
(hopefully) making their way to the FA Cup quarter finals. I can't believe
that it is almost a year since I last sat in my seat at the KP (Man City,
22/02/2020). I did not go to the last home game where fans were present, Aston
Villa on 09/03/2020 - it was a Monday night, I'd been busy and the writing was
on the wall about impending closures and lockdowns - I just didn't fancy it
and watched at home. Since then I've seen more LCFC games on TV than would
normally be feasible as every game home and away has been televised. Whilst I
want my team to succeed, in a weird way I will be massively disappointed if we
were to win the FA Cup (the only top level domestic trophy LCFC have never
won) in a season when no fans can experience and enjoy the spectacle.
The canals and the bridges, the embankments and cuts
They blasted and dug with their sweat and their guts
They never drank water but whiskey by pints
And the shanty towns rang with their songs and their fights
The sun is out, so perhaps later there will be new stuff to post but in the meantime an early post interlude .....
By default working and being at home everyday I've seen more around the garden and posted more in the last month than I have done for a long while. And in terms of content, it must be the most illustrated months-worth of posting (though I'm not going to check to confirm).
April content:
Total posts 24
Total photos/images 184
Named Species / Sp. Featured:
Moths 32
Flies 25
Beetles 25
Bugs 6
Bees 3
Other inverts 5
Plants/Lichens 22
Vertebrates 5
Audio Links:
Bands 17
YouTube links 20
Remember that I mentioned some Facebook thing to post albums that in some way influenced me or my taste in music. I was not old enough for punk, and turned 11 in 1979 just in time for a load
of post-punk new wave type stuff, the ska revival and the wider-scale emergence of synth-based music. I have no older siblings, so aside from whatever my Dad was playing (which was mainly prog rock but in the late 70s included Blondie, The Police, The Stranglers) and mainstream TV and radio, my wider appreciation of music started when I hit secondary education in an inner-city comprehensive in 1979.
Summarising your whole musical outlook in ten albums is nigh on impossible, but I picked these as being some of them:
Vangelis - China (1979)
Inner City - Paradise (1989)
Depeche Mode - Speak and Spell (1981)
The Art of Noise - Who's Afraid of (1984)
Jesus Jones - Liquidizer (1989)
Siouxsie and the Banshees - Once Upon a Time (1981)
Kraftwerk - Computer World (1981)
Skinny Puppy - Remission & Bites (1987)
Japan - Assemblage (1981)
Madness - One Step Beyond (1979)
These are not necessarily my favourite albums by the artists or in the genre, but they were the lead-in to listening to more of them and/or more of similar artists at the time or over the years. I make no apology for picking a couple of singles/back catalogue compilations for Siouxsie and Japan, and a label re-issue package of earlier material for Skinny Puppy.
It's notable that all of these are pre-1990. It's not like there has been nothing since then, but if I think really hard about it, everything I listen to could be worked back to earlier influences
including these. There is lots of new music, but it's all evolved and it doesn't feel like there's been any musical revolution for decades. Or maybe I am really just so old now I am completely out of touch with dem yoot.
I listen to a lot a varied stuff, pretty much anything except out and out hillbilly country of folky stuff. I think some of that varied taste is reflected in these albums but it's clearly far from comprehensive. I could easily have listed another ten and then done it again.
And finally, a vid clip came up on my Facebook timeline this morning reminding me that four years ago today LCFC became Premier League Champions when Spurs handed over a 2-0 lead and cashed in any chance of catching the mighty Foxes. But it wasn't the footballing glory that immediately struck me; it was the huge numbers in the pub, drinking and socialising without restriction. It's only been a few weeks since this became impossible, but the marked contrast to lockdown makes it seem a lifetime away. We were in the main City pub for football fans, the Local Hero, along with media from around the world ....
Fat bloke middle-left in white LCFC shirt throws full pint and celebrates the second Chelsea goal at 0.36secs, and jumps around on verge of coronary when the final whistle blows ..
It's the season of peace, hope and goodwill to all men .....
Try telling that to anyone that's just watched their team capitulate twice in less than a week. Away at Man City, the Etihad Stadium was massive, I was sat far away and the result was disappointing to say the least. At the KP, the club put on a great pre-match lights and pyro show. Hopes were high that we could push Liverpool to their first league defeat of the season, only for Leicester to roll over with a whimper. It was easier to take when expectations were low and we were bound to get pasted. Before that season.
It would have been a lot worse without ample pre-match lubrication for both games. Anyway, enough of that (poor) footballing nonsense.
As I am sure many amateur naturalists will recognise, there is always an odd sense of hope and anticipation during the week between Christmas and the New Year. For many, January 1st is a time to start afresh, look forward to the return of the change of seasons, and wonder what you're going to see that you haven't done before. Quite often, targets are set and ambitions are sometimes publicised .....
I'm not falling into that trap again, as I am notoriously bad at seeing them through!
Okay, sorry to anyone expecting photos of moths, birds, leaves etc. Here's a few snaps from watching the mighty LCFC through some of the pre-season warm-up games (where we mainly played rubbish) and the first game of the whole 17/18 Premier League season (where we played great until the last ten minutes .....).
Molineux, Wolverhampton Wanderers FC v LCFC, 29/07/2017
Pirelli Stadium, Burton Albion FC v LCFC, 01/08/2017
King Power Stadium, LCFC v Borussia Monchengladbach, 04/08/2017
