….the fifth of November….the day a black guy became the 44th president of the United States of America and the people of the World experienced a truly tangible sense of hope for the first time since another utterly compelling and personable young man with vision took centre stage as the most powerful politician on Earth way back in the 1960s. That man,as I’m sure you know (or possibly even remember) was John F Kennedy and he too was a  charismatic figure capable of capturing…

A fly with what appears to be an articulating, Pelican beak, membrane-like proboscis…Well, It turns out to be another kind of Hover Fly, one that prefers to lay its eggs in cow dung where they hatch into larval form and remain until finally emerging as adult flies. There’s another photo of it on the “Garden” page. Long-John “Hoppy” the Hedgehog….Update….Permanent resident in my garden for a few years now, Long-John the Hedgehog lost an eye and a…

Tess makes it all so much easier these days than it used to be.

Most easily distinguishable from its close relative the Sea Spurge by its red-tinted “flowers”, the Portland Spurge confines itself to the Western and South-Western coastline of England and Wales or the Eastern coast of Northern Ireland and Eire.

My wife has managed to encourage the Clematis to wind itself up a wall and over the top of the back garden gate. This has been her special project for many a year.

Big, generally aggressive and with a tendency to attack stuff without so much as a by-your-leave, this very large hunter/invader from the Continent tends to both dwarf and bully our more happy-go-lucky little home-grown versions!  The one in the photograph landed on my hand this afternoon while I was completely minding my own business, but unfortunately, it flew up into the air just as I was trying to manoeuvre my camera into position with my other hand to get an interesting shot of it! I…

While the Workers were preoccupied with relieving these little Black Bean Aphids of their honeydew, small units of Soldier Ants (note the larger, flatter head and the stronger jaws) rounded up any strays, coralling them into more manageable-sized groups. Occasionally, a single soldier would gather an Aphid gently in its jaws and carry it off to the nest.

Here he is….probably the most famous Chaffinch in the Solar System and worried about by people from Telford to Toronto to Triton!Anyway, as you can see from this quick and very blurry snap I took of him this morning, he’s doing just fine and is spending his time flying back and forth to the front garden to get food for his family….Yes, “Scraps” has a family….and to think, when he first lost his leg because of getting a claw caught in one of those stupid…

…. We still had seven miles to cover before arriving home however, mostly across open countryside and with less than two hours of daylight remaining. Not really a problem in the relatively tame and overly manicured Cotswolds, but we did walk more than twenty-one miles in total that day. overly

The National Arboretum at Westonbirt, is divided into two main parts, the “Old Arboretum”, dating back to the 1850s and “Silk Wood”, large sections of which date back to the 13th Century. We spent about three hours this visit, walking and taking photographs in Silk Wood.

I’m not saying that Skippers are skittish little wotsits or anything, but getting a shot like this is probably almost as difficult as trying to photograph Lee Evans on amphetamines!

It’s September and the Buddleia in the garden is still pulling in the Butterflies as much as ever!

Standing amidst some of the most ancient prehistoric earthworks to be found anywhere in the UK right on the cusp of Spring, a place like this can have a profound effect on anyone “fortunate” enough to be sensitive to such things.

I’ve seen Snowdrops towards the end of January a few times over the years, but I took this picture on the 12th January 2007 no less and, try as I might, I can’t find a single text book that refers to Snowdrops flowering even before February (a few crocuses are out as well)! Add that to the wasp I saw the other day and the half dozen Bees or so I’ve spotted this winter (loads of fishermen have been seeing them too) and I’d say you might as well dust off your best pair of…