The Family Holiday 2014

We were a bit pushed for time off this year with my work, Eleanor not being well, Verity being at University and Yoke’s work but in the end we had a week out for the 1^st week of September. Given the finances it was decided a week in UK was best value for little money so then it was ‘where to go?’

It was deemed a bit unfair to go to Cornwall with Verity being there in Uni and we all had fond memories of Charmouth from a camping holiday we had there quite a few years ago, so the decision was made. Dorset it was to be, Jurassic coast between Lyme Regis and Weymouth. In the end due to when we could book somewhere we ended up just a bit north of Beaminster. The Granary cottage, the owners were very nice and friendly and it was a nice location and very relaxing.

Much scouring of maps and ‘things to do’ etc and plans for the days were made, Fossil hunting on the beach, Gardens, more fossil hunting on the beach, more Gardens, a day in Lyme Regis, a day at Escot to introduce Verity to some red Squirrels, some general bimbling and lots and lots of photos.

I think it was a success, the weather held and we had some lovely days, saw Red Squirrels, found fossils, saw the highest powered fountain in England at 160ft. Took ‘just a few’ photos, this update will be split into a few sections I think. 

A random set of images in no particular order

 An Allium seed head - love the alien faces

 Beach Huts at Charmouth

  Bridge over a stream in Abbotsbury Sub Tropical gardens

Swathes of yellow 

The Devils cows !

 Sunset

Guerilla Knitting in Lyme Regis

Gulls on those lamposts

Lantern flowers

 Common Lizards, these little fellows were about 2-3 inches long - total

Watching you, one of the owls in the Escot

Dew on a spiders web

Spindle berries

Red Squirrel at Escot

Dried Seaweed on a rock - a little tree

The girls enjoying the sun

Three little piggies

Waiting for his princess

Any one that kills a fly is a friend of mine

And another web - no spiders due to my audience dont like them

A photo session - one feeds the others clicks

Next episode will be posted later

The day in the middle

Funny old day, Sunday on a Bank Holiday, neither one thing nor the other, went and did some work on the allotment – need to do a lot more to help Yoke with that.

Then the afternoon was a bit overcast but okay so decided to do a garden safari

Found a few things to photograph, ignored spiders as they were all the usual suspects and, really they are not doing their jobs, flies everywhere and they sit there smug in their webs catching nowt, the only one that I saw with anything in its web was a small hoverfly, I like  them! Happy to say it got away so even that spider was a klutz.

Anyway, a few photos -  

sing along if you know the words

 Yokes Agapanthus flowered, the girls decided this was a stage and each member of the orchestra had a flower each and this was the club singer - ugly bugs ball !

Follow My leader

These are immature shield bugs, pre adult, they were huddled together on a tomato plant leaf till I started to photo them - then they circled out and headed off

Harvestman

The Harvestman, they are closely related to spiders but are not venomous and have a 'single' body poor beastie has lost a leg did not slow it down when it decided to do a bunk, clealry not star material, it was not happy being under the spotlight

herb moth

I call it a herb moth, it has a latin name but not an 'common' name, its appearance is always the same time as the Marjoram flowers. Its tiny but very colourful and nice to see them flitting about the plants

 

Spekled Bush Cricket

 Can you see its ears ? Heres a clue look at the front legs around the knee joint !

who is in there ?

This is a bit strange, we have had a lot of caterpillars on the Nasturtiums - this was one of them that has weaved its web and changed into a crysalid, the strange thing is - thats a yellow Iris leaf in the middle of our pond, so how did it get there?

White tailed Bumblebee on iceplant

 The Iceplant out in the front garden is in flower the bees love it - in previous years it has been covered in Painted Lady butterflies, not a single butterfly this year, but lots of bees!

and a few solitary wasps - this little insect is about 6mm long but has jaws the size of its head - also likes nectar !

Thats about it for today the light has dropped and so has the temperature so all the bugs have left the Ball and gone home to curl up and sleep till the next one 

A Walk around Tondu

Went for a bit of a walk today, the girls were at the cat shelter, http://www.bridgend.cats.org.uk/
They were having an open day and going for a record, the most people dressed up as cats at one time. Seems there is no official record so the nice people at the Guinness Book of Records picked a reasonable number as a break point, dont know yet if they made it or not.

I decided it was a good opportunity for me to take a walk and play with the camers.

So off to Tondu, as it was close after dropping the girls off. It was not a very long walk and the weather was grey mostly but a few nice views and a few photos - flies of all types !

This is a Common Darter, Sympetrum striolatum saw over 50 of them some were quite obliging letting me get fairly close with the macro lens.

After that we had this little fella - and it is a fella !

You can see why they call them Scorpion flies, probably Panorpa communis as that is the most common I believe

More walking and one of my favourite damsels

The Emerald damselfly Lestes sponsa, unusual for damsels as they hold their wings at 45 degrees rather than closed like other damsels. They are larger than most other damsels and a fabulous metalic colour.

Finally on my way back to the car, a fly - a real fly

 Cant say I like them as I dont, but fascinating when you get the detail in a macro shot, There were a lot of them about mainly flying a bit them settling until something came into their area then flew a bit more then settled again, at least they were not biting !




Finally to finish on something nice, there were a few of these about

A fresh bright Peacock butterfly Inachis Io 


In all a nice day with some good fun and a few nice photos

And about time too !

Well it has been a few weeks! ah well, been around done a few things since the last update.

Eleanor makes progress on her walking, gone from not being able to walk the length of the house to walking to the beach, but then needs a sleep to recover but that is good progress, travel in vehicles is still not good though, 10 mins in the car make her feel like half a day on a channel ferry in a storm and she needs to sit still for 20 mins before she can get up and not be sick or fall over. Makes going to work impossible as she wont be able to get off the train/bus in time !

I am still learning to use the macro lens, when I can get it first that is now Verity is home, mind you I did mess with her head and cause some very un-lady like words to issue forth from her. 

She borrowed my camera with the lens on, I had shown her I set it up with rear button focus the previous evening but she forgot till she tried to use the camera. For those that want to know what that means, the camera, like most, auto-focuses the lens when you half depress the shutter button. However, the fact that I shoot macro / nature shots mainly, I set it up so it auto focused when you press the AE button on the back of the camera and not when you press the shutter button. In effect this allows me to have single focus, follow focus and manual focus as and when I want with no change to the camera setup. Fine if you know but if you don’t know you spend a while trying to figure out why the lens is not focusing when you depress the shutter button

The weather has been ‘warm’ while this is nice it does make macro insect photography challenging as the insects are very busy flying about, but at least its good to see a lot of butterflies, damsels and dragons

Anyway, a few shots from the last few weeks, various places various dates.

First of all down south in Cornwall, 

Attempted Murder - think about it

 

Beautiful Demoiselle - Calopteryx splendens

Ahh Peanuts, mmmm

 Then a few from Aberthaw a local reserve near us

Black-tailed Skimmer - Orthetrum cancellatum

That fraught moment for a male spider

Meadow Brown - Maniola jurtina

Large Skipper - Ochiodes venatus

Pyramidal orchids - just a small selection in the field

Robber Fly with prey

 This one was taken at Cerny House gardens, a really nice garden, very worth a visit - www.cerneygardens.com/

Herb Bennet seed head with spider web

The garden has gone mad in the weather and the allotment has suffered but we have had some fruit and veg, not a lot but nice to have any at the moment, the strawberries and raspberries were really nice – they taste so much better if you grow them yourself

Finally managed to get a brew on again – a short run Saison, 24 bottles in the end, should be ready for end of August, next week I need to get another short run brew on, a golden IPA I think then look at brewing a Christmas beer, something Nutty Brown and fruity I think.

Next its time to get the studio back in play - but not till it cools off a bit. I do however what to show Eleanor how to make a bead, I think she will like that and it wil be nice to get creative in that medium again.