arachnophobes beware

I was going to make a blog post yesterday about my trip to kent and our escape from the rain, but got a bit distracted having to defend my room against this beast...

arrghhhhhhhhhhhh!

I think I handled it pretty well, using the tried and tested Nearest Pot-like Object and Paper technique. Other than the part where it tried to attack me as I put it outside the front door. At least I hope it went out from the front door- spiders can be very sneaky. By the way, this photo may be deceiving, because the spider was about as big as my hand (at LEAST).

Anyway, Kent was very nice, very very pretty with some awesome coppiced forests and suchlike. Always nice to get a bird that the boy misses too :P And for the record it was more like "bboooooooom" "did you hear that?" "boooomm" "there?" "hmmm". Maybe I'm just better at bitterns or something.

Must go, need to sort out my mountain of clothes into some semblance of order so that I can pack for my holiday :)

I will leave you with a little pearl of wisdom from my nan, who called me especially to tell me she heard the first cuckoo of the year from her garden yesterday.

"April they arrive, and sing all through May. Middle of June they change their tune, and then they fly away".

one man down

I knew it was going too well, it was only going to last so long really. I can' t say I have a stunning record with pets, and with the exception of one very stubborn and fat old cat our pets have never really lasted that long. Let us spare a moment's thought for the first casualty of my fish tank adventure...

Rest In Peace Panda the Sequel, who was always the less fortunate cousin of Original Panda.
Had a big clean up of the tank too, with latest snail harvest=7. Got three big'uns though so hoping I have stopped the egg laying for a bit. Hmph.

Right, how to pick up this blog post from my tale of woe? Maybe just skip over it...

I went to see Spring Awakening last night, and it was AWESOME. For those of you who may have somehow avoided the massive amount of publicity this show has had on the Underground etc, take a look here. Stayed round my sisters flat afterwards, which always has the extra benefit of a little longer in bed in the morning. Decided to go the scenic way to work this morning, walking fom Baker Street around the lake and through Regents Park to the zoo.

I didn't have my camera with me, but in the name of good bloggans I didn't let this stop me, so courtesy of my rubbish phone camera, please find some delightfully shit photographs of some really quite cool waterfowl from Regents Park...

Two very bold herons totally not caring that I'm standing a metre behind them

Whooper swans- would be a life tick if it weren't for the fact I KNOW they're in the park collection. Damn The Rules... Very pretty though :)

I have saved the best for last. Behold! Possibly the best photo of a great crested grebe you will ever see...

Definitely a very nice way to walk to work, but it won't be a very regular occurence unless for some strange reason I am early for work (this never happens). One lunch time though maybe I'll get round to having a proper look round the lake...

Croak

Managed to dash outside for a walk this afternoon between some bursts of rain, thought it would be a good idea to visit Rainham as I've not been for a proper look-around for ages.

The tropical scene as seen from the hide. Birds everywhere..

Not a massively impressive day in terms of birds, although one person may disagree with me. Got my first glimpse of a little gull (like most other gulls, but smaller), saw a greenshank and two little ringed plovers, and loads of swifts, swallows and martins flying around our heads the whole time. Most entertaining prize goes to the wren that nearly got blown out of the reeds by the wind, after a brave attempt at some territory defence. Piles of marsh frogs everywhere made up for the general lack of birds wanting to sit out on show today, but still I enjoyed the walk and the cheese scone.

Croaaaaaak! Awesome.

Some sort of pea family, not sure what. Can be found in massive piles along stonechat straight (currently absent of stone/whinchats though)

off to the woods

I meant to make a post at some point in the week, but seemed to be busy every evening as tends to happen. The boy and I were hoping to go out for a walk somewhere today, but am currently waiting for the rain to subside. It means I get to catch up with some blogging though, so lucky you :P

Last weekend we went for a walk in the woods at South Weald, hoping to find some bluebells and possibly some black kites (maybe a bit hopeful there)...

Said hi to the chav deer before heading around the lake at South Weald and away from the 25493 other people that seem to accumulate around the car park. Weird group of deer, as they've been penned in as part of the original group of the estate, but must be sooo inbred by now. Can't say they're the finest specimens but nice for people to see I suppose.

I think I can safely say that the bluebell mission for this spring has been safely achieved... Very pretty stuff and I've even thrown in a bonus caterpillar there for your perusal (identifications please :) )

Must head off, the sun is beginning to poke out through the clouds and boy is looking a bit bored...

Of birds and butterflies

So Norfolk is quite good isn't it?


We saw loads of stuff, including some life firsts (bearded tits, long tailed duck, bittern, various warblers, and a certain amazing bird of prey) , but just as impressive as the fact that Norfolk has so many birds that you practically trip over them, we also racked up an impressive mammal and butterfly list. So in light of the fact we found a veritable shitload of biodiversity, here are some very edited highlights...

orange tip butterfly

speckled wood butterfly

a common cockchafer, which seemed to not be very good at staying the right way up

early purple orchid? (maiden is welcome to correct me on this )

A muntjac that lept in front of our car

An obvious highlight of our Norfolk trip was a boat trip to Blakeney Point, and saw plenty of common seals, a grey seal, all four tern species, piles of oystercatcher and more suprisingly brent geese, and a sing female long tailed duck flying over our heads and landing on the water as we landed on the shore.

Common seal trying not to float away apparently

four sandwich terns (copyright Parus for this one)

One of the most entertaining birds we saw wasn't massively rare, but was absolutely stunning. I think Parus has a video of this sedge warbler somewhere, I'm hoping that he will be putting it up for us to share :)

sedge warblers are awesome :)

Other highlights included barn owls and tawny owls keeping us up in the night, loads of cuckoos, bearded tits pinging over the reeds at Titchwell, a little ringed plover at Cley, and a bittern flying out of the reeds at Lakenheath on the way home.

This is the best barn owl picture I have out of about 20. Oh well :)

ahh, East Anglia how I love thee...

I am sure we will be visiting again in the not too distant future, and camping was good fun. As long as we don't have a screaming 18 month old in the tent next time I'm definitely up for a revisit.

One day I might tell you about how I lost my mobile phone somewhere in a forest for a day, and the adventure we went on to recover it...

I will do better than this...

I spent this weekend (well it was actually 5 days) camping in Norfolk and had a brilliant time with some other bloggers I happen to know.


I was going to write an awesome blog post about everything we saw and everywhere we visited, but after The Great Snail Hunt this evening to try and reclaim my tank from the almighty snail army, I don't really have enough time to do it justice. So watch this space...

lazy bloggans

I haven't got round to writing a post about my trip to Abberton on the weekend yet, so you will have to contain your excitement on that one for now.

I managed to find a bit of time this weekend to get a few more plants for my aquarium, and a couple of new fish. First off was another panda corydora, to keep my other one company when zipping up and down the side of the tank. Secondly I wanted something a bit more interesting.

This is my dutch ram, and he's very pretty. He was a bit shy to start with, and is very good at swimming through the plants unlike my rubbish minnows which tend to just see them as obstacles to go round. He's very colourful and is getting more confident, after working out the catfish aren't a threat. I contemplated getting angelfish, but my tank isn't quite hot enough for them (and i can't turn it up any higher without boiling the minnows). I think this guy is a bit different though, and seems to get on with all my other fish.

In other fish tanky news, there are still no platy babies, so maybe the white platy just has eating issues and I shouldn't draw attention to her sudden weight gain. Oh, and what started out as two tiny stowaway snails on a plant about a month ago has turned into snail city inside my filter, and half the pebbles are now snails. Shit. Any suggestions other than a bucket of salt?