I managed to capture an image of the moon between clouds tonight.
The news is containing some comments about the iss international space station being visible (central southern UK) around 5:20 pm (GMT), Christmas eve, it will i’m afraid be low on the horizon.
This Saturday if anyone is interested in trying to see it go over it will be higher in the sky passing just south of Wales and across southern England, appearing a little after 4:53 pm and should be visible for approx 6 minutes until it disappears into shadow.
Mae ddrwg gen i, John. It is not a hide I need. There is nowhere I could be with a better view than y gegin (the kitchen)!! What I do not have, I’m afraid is a certain virtue, named in a verse which says, “Seldom found in woman and never in a man!”. I don’t know who wrote that, but I know she was wrong!! It is clear from your brilliant photos that you possess the virtue, amynedd, (patience) to a great degree, and I presume from your name that you are male!!
If I get a picture of our new little robin goch, it will mean that he or she has gained confidence and has come to eat and eat under our bird table!! I have changed ‘coch’ to ‘goch’ because I actually checked my Geiriadur. It seems ‘robin’ yn Gymraeg is sexed as female!! (Mind I’m sure I’ve seen ‘robin coch fach’ on TV, which is a bit confused in itself!!
Hwyaden Bengoch.
Ymwelydd gaeaf cyffredin â phrydain ac Iwerddon. Fe’i gwelir yn bennaf yn Lloegr a de’r Alban, ond hefyd ar lynoedd bas yn yr iseldir yng Nghymru, yn enwedig ar ynys Môn.
Mae gan y ceiliog pen browngoch, lygaid coch, bron ddu, corff llwyd a cynffon du.
Mae gan y ceiliog pig du, â blaen llwydlas, wrth hedfan, mae adenydd y ddau yn llwydfrown.
Fe’i gwelir fel rheol ar lynnoedd a chronfeydd dŵr mewn beidiau bychan. Bydd yn plymio’n aml am ei bwyd.
Mae’r hwyaden bengoch yn bwyta amrywiaeth o bethau gan gynnwys hadau, molysgiaid, mwydod a phryfed.
Pochard.
Winter visitor common with Britain and Ireland. It is found mainly in England and southern Scotland, but also in shallow lowland lakes in Wales, especially on the island of Anglesey.
The male has a reddish brown head, eyes red, chest black, gray body and black tail.
The male has a black beak, with grayblue front, in flight, both wings are brownish gray.
It is seen usually on lakes and reservoirs in small flocks. It will often dives for its food.
The pochard eats a variety of things including seeds, molluscs, worms and insects.
The recording is awful, guess i need a better microphone, but it’s an experiment.
Mwsogl - moss (the same group i photographed last week, now without raindrops, i assume the stems are for latter spore caps to appear at their tops).
Bydd yn ddiddorol i weld, sut mae’r rhain yn datblygu - It will be interesting to see, how they develop.
Yr Lleuad heno. The moon tonight (technically, a full moon tomorrow).
I didn’t see any sleigh and reindeer cross it, but look up and you may just be lucky.
A very strange winter in Russia - heb eira (without snow), with snowdrops blooming, green grass (you can see it in the picture, behind the birds) and lots of well-fed, serious adar y to (sparrows).
Some more advanced than others,
Now i need to look for the tiny female flowers to appear - Rwan, dw i angen gwilio am yr blodau benywaidd bach bach iawn ymddangos.
Iolo Williams was talking to an arbenigwyr ffyngau on Radio Cymru yesterday. First broadcast in the autumn but available again now for 28 days. Thought you might be interested @ramblingjohn@johnwilliams_6@carungo
Coes las y coed - Wood blewit.
Surprise of the day finding these in such fresh condition.
Coes las y coed. Taldra uchaf 8 cm.
Ffwng blasus sydd i’w weld mewn coedwigoedd collddail a pherthi.
Cyffredin yn yr hydref.
Mae’r cap llyfn yn lliw porffor golau.
Mae fel côn i ddechrau ond yn troi’n fwy gwastad wrth aeddfedu.
Lelog – borffor yw lliw’r tagellau a cheir llinellau lelog ar y goes.
Wood blewit. Top 8 cm height.
Delicious fungus which can be found in deciduous forests and bushes.
Common in the autumn.
The cap is smooth color mauve.
It is like a cone at first but becomes flatter at maturity.
Lilac - purple is the color of gills and a lilac lines on the leg.
It looks like ‘Mucilago crustacea’ (dog sick slime mould).
Dim anifail, dim planhigion, dim bacteria, dim ffwng.
Traditionally studied by mycologists (fungus people), because when ripe they produce spores,
but this is the only thing they have in common with fungus.
They are a separate family 'myxomycete’ , quite the fascinating little limb on the tree of life.
I’m afraid I’ve forgotten why, but there were a couple of chaps researching slime moulds in our building when I worked in cancer research!! I don’t think they were looking to cure any kind of cancer… it was more genetics, I think. because, as I recall, slime moulds are comprised of two organisms, both very simple??? Or was it one orgaanism with 2 lifestyles, moving and still??
John, I liked your willow tit and knew the song, (tit willow, tit willow, not the tit’s song!) but I don’t think I’ve ever seen one. We get blue, long tailed, great and coal tits!
Also, after seeing him/her for brief moments on two days, the robin goch fach has vanished again, so was clearly passing through. We are, again, robinless!!
You say the sweetest things!
I was relieved to google & learn that the mould is thus called because it looks like dog sick rather than grows on it. Today it is looking less slimy (llysnafeddog)
Your above is excellent, if you can capture images over a few days, the way they change is
wonderful.
I predict they/it will produce a dry hard crust/external surface (i think that’s “wyneb allanol”)
then you can pick a piece and on crushing find the inside is a mass of spores like pepper.
This sounds more like the reason as they can morff from one form to another, they start out as single cells with flagella for motion.
There is so much to write on this subject but my Welsh is lacking.
