What an uncommonly good photo of the common blue (and the others, of course)!
Hwyl, John
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I love these photos, superb detail. Ardderchog @ramblingjohn
I’m wondering if this sheep is moulting?? Tybed ydy’r ddafad 'ma yn colli eI gwlan?? I think some breeds do??
I’ve been looking for oak apples. Dw’i wedi bod yn chwilio am afalau derw. Not much luck, but is this how they start?? Ydyn nhw’n dechrau fel hyn?
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At one stage, in our village on Gower, two brothers had a feud. Neither would shear the other’s sheep. Before the feud, their flocks were mixed. We started to see sheep that looked like the one in your picture, some ended up with maggots eating their flesh, due to lack of dipping. Terrible. I’m not sure if the RSPCA got involved - I was living in London and only got down to Gower some weekends and a couple of weeks in summer. How the one in your picture got like that, i don’t know. Are the others sheared tidy? Here, we have had a very mild winter,so maybe shearing is early?
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I didn’t really look at the others because I was time poor & this one grabbed my attention but I’ll go back; I’m collecting wool at the moment with a big plan to use it in flowers pots so that my plants are cosy. I love the feel & smell of wool to be found snagged on brambles & trees.
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Yes, many wild animals do, sheep have been bred for meat and wool for millennia, but the moulting gene is no doubt still in the DNA and in some individuals it appears to get switched on (expressed).
Interesting what breeding had achieved over time.
Those galls look like cherry galls, relatively firm if you try to squeeze them, oak apples are basically white but tinged green and red, they are soft like a marsh mallow, they are mutated stem buds so don’t appear on underside of leaves. Curious you are not finding them with ease when there are so many here.
dw i’n gobeithio casglu y mis nesaf ychydig afal derw - I’m hoping to collect a few oak apples next month, (to see if i can get an image of the insect that causes them as they emerge from the galls).
Maggots could appear in a flesh wound, but we usually found them, either around their rear if not clean (spring grass can have an effect like too much curry)
Or from their feet (foot rot), when the sheep lay down you will see their front feet tucked under their body and maggots from their feet will migrate up the wool.
Keep the photo’s coming.
Cheers J.P.
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We have had to stop feeding our birds due to spreading sickness in the area. Attracting lots of birds together is contra-indicated at present, so not much to take pictures of.
I don’t think you need a pic of our derwen baban bach with its leaves on! I had a ‘Prince Andrei Bolkonsky’ moment last week, when I suddenly noticed it glowing with lovely new leaves, seemingly from nowhere with no warning! (Tolstoy tells of Prince Andrei seeing this aged dark, leafless oak tree when everything is going wrong for him and, later, on his return journey, there is this gloriously alive oak, covered with lovely, bright young leaves. The imagery always appealed to me, but I’ve never noticed it myself until this year!).
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Yep, suddenly a nice day and everything looks so much better, you may like to inspect the little oak for galls or caterpillars.
Heddiw - today.
Gellesgen - yellow iris.
Cheers J.P.
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I’d love to, but I don’t think my lungs will let me get up there. As for caterpillars, I hope our poor hungry birds are feeding those to their chicks!!
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Heddiw, dydy haul ddim yn gweny - today, the sun didn’t shine.
Gweirloyn brych, cudlliw dda - Speckled wood, good camouflage.
Pryf teiliwr mawr - crane fly.
Pryf sgorpion - Scorpion fly.
Pidyn drewllyd - stinkhorn.
(i like it’s Latin name, Phallus impudicus).
Cheers J.P.
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Impudicus indeed. What a great fungus. Mother Nature has a wicked sense of humour. I’ve never seen one so will be keeping a look out for them, or presumably I need to be sniffing to spot them.
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They certainly have an aroma to attract flies which go away with the spores on their feet (ain’t nature clever).
I really want to find the witches egg so i can cut it In half to show how they develop.
Cheers J.P.
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Heddiw - today.
Mursen fawr wych gwrywaidd - Male banded demoiselle.
Mursen fawr dywyll benywaidd - Female beautiful demoiselle.
Cheers J.P.
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Oedd hi’n bwrw glaw trwy’r dydd heddiw. It rained all day today but I managed to get out in a moment of dryness this evening.
I didn’t take my camera which always means I’ll see rhywbeth cyffrous. Something exciting - slime mould!!
Then, just as it was getting dark I went out to the compost bin & a slug & a snail appeared to be getting very friendly.
Slime, slugs & snails; just one of those days.
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I presume neither snugs nor slails will result!! (Of course, if they do, you can publish a paper in Nature!)
Thinks: snail - malwoden, slug - gwlithod , so malithod neu gwloden?
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When out with the dog today, I saw a few different birds but these were the only ones I managed to get in focus Ji-binc (Chaffinch) and …
Bras Melyn (Yellowhammer). I still haven’t got a clear picture of a Dryw (Wren) just brown smudges.
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Oh nostalgia! Walks near Mewslade Bay punctuated by ‘little bit of bread and no cheese’! Never see or hear them here! Still don’t know what they say yn y Gymraeg! ‘Tipyn o bara a dim caws’ doesn’t sound right!
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I think the ji binc is named in Welsh after its call “ji binc ji binc ji binc”
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Yes, it’s the Bras Melyn that says Tipyn bach o bara a dim caws in English, but it rhymes with 'little bit of bread and no cheese "!
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Ddoe. Yesterday. These holly berries are lasting a long time!
This celynnen is always full of adar enjoying the berries, but the celynnen is still llawn dop full of berries.
Now they are falling to the ground & ground feeding birds (& probably mammals) are enjoying them too. As winter approaches, if old wives are to be believed, lots of holly berries herald a harsh winter.
If they last into spring, does this mean that the forecast was wrong. Oedd y rhagolwg yn anghywir??
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We have had a very mild winter! You know how yours has been. I suspect the holly got it wrong or maybe it was wishful thinking? “Huh! Been getting warmer and warmer, maybe if I make a lot of berries, that’ll cool it down?”
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