I was hoping to get a grass snake or two this morning but this little slow worm was all I could find.
There have been some really good threads in this room over the years but I have to say that this is transpiring to be one of the best. Nice to see all the wildlife and then to have some expert identification too when the subjects get a bit tricky. I went birdwatching down at Portland about 10 years ago. It is a trek for me from where I live. I chose to go down on an August Bank Holiday but I saw absolutely nothing even though I had anticipated that I might start seeing the first migrants returning home to Africa. There are the remains of some quarries near the observatory and I think there were quite a few linnets there from recollection but precious little else. On the way back I tried my luck at Radipole Lake but gave up as I could not find anywhere to park. The impression I had was that you needed to stay at Portland for a matter of days to get the full benefit. I am more used to travelling to places like Tichfield Haven, Blashford Lakes or Fishlake Meadows where I can easily see more than 35 species in one day with the good chance of seeing something special. I find it odd how some sites gain a really good reputation yet have always been slightly underwhelming when I have visited. The prime example locally is Alresford Pond. Loads of stuff turns up in the HOS magazine but never when I have turned up. It is one of those places where I could write a list beforehand of everything I know I would see there. My excuse for going to Alresford is more to do with visiting the Itchen Brewery or Pulpo Negro in The Broadway. It is interesting to see the photo of the rolling Wiltshire countryside. Up until August 2018 I used to work in Andover and in the summer would go birdwatching on Stockbridge Down. I have found this to be surprisingly good. There are some spectacular views and you can also see some Bronze age barrows and the remains of an Iron Age hillfort which make it a bit more interesting.
My head is starting to go walkabout so I have hidden myself away for a couple of days with the aim of designing some new arty bee and insect houses. Not that any bees or bugs will appreciate the ridiculous amount of time spent on their new accommodation but these are the sort of daft things I do when the lockdown starts to eat a hole in my head. As a change from computer design I thought I would get the pencil and paper out and do the designs the old fashioned way. The pile of scrap paper is about 3ft deep at the moment. I just opened some rather lovely Italian red wine so the bee houses will likely look a bit wibbly wobbly if the wine is really good. I have a stack of really nice western red cedar left over from building a Canadian strip canoe about 9 years ago so I plan on using some of it, but left natural so it will weather nicely. I forgot how much the cedar cost but it was enough to make me question my own sanity at the time. I'll post some pictures when there has been some progress.
Found this today after I had cut our hedge back. Shame. I had to do it as the hedge was ridiculous and taller than the lilac tree.
You built that? Impressive as for the bee and insect hotel. I now have 3 piles of branches at the bottom of my garden. Longest ones about 12-15’ Long and the piles about 4-5’ high. Now if I do my usual and leave them there for several weeks/months/years they will make excellent insect, hedgehog, bird, snake houses it all depends on the wife
You built that yourself? That's impressive, it looks great. Edit........Ha, Looks like FLT was reading my mind
please log in to view this image That's a terrific photo, you don't see those very often. A Nissan Qashqai if I'm not mistaken and in grey too. I know it's probably not a Qashqai, I couldn't think of anything else.
IOAG I have tried to post some of my photos but a message keeps on coming up that the files are too large to upload. I will have another attempt but when this thead first materialised I attempted to post some photos without success.
You can’t post anything larger than 2MB Ian. It might be worth trying to reduce the size accordingly, or reducing the resolution slightly.
Ian, I'm not particularly proficient in these things but this is what I've done when needed I opened the photo in Office Picture Manager then compress or resize it
The Red head has got no tattoos. She's 17 so isn't allowed. She'll still ask me first when she's 18. Her older sister has 7 or 8. I love them all. I let them make their choices, cos consequences.
