New hobby

This thing absolutely dies in the arse during the winter months. Even the moths and other flying insects that are about aren't getting in when the house is shut up tight to keep the warmth in and the bills down.

We have a new hobby, however, but one that will only occupy us during the hours of daylight. So I've set up a separate blog to record the goings-on at our allotment and in paricular during these early months the slog from weed bed to potential source of veggie goodness.

Not entirely pointless

I think you'll agree that I've been quite successful in evading the trap of filling this blog with loads of 'off-topic' stuff, which is all well and good but as we're well into autum the posts inevitably dry up: a glance at the list of archived months will confirm this happened last year as it is now happening in 2007.

There has been one moth in the bathroom this week; a small microlepidopera I've attempted to photograph before without great success. It is less than one centimeter long and has coppery speckled upper wings. I never see it during the day and the sheen makes flash photography problematic with my limited equipment and even more severely limited skill.

Any ho, I'm not dead. The sun is out and the Red Emperors are in flight in the back garden still, continuing to enjoy the rotting plums I have set out in buckets for them.

And I have to go to work.

Moths (and so forth) in the bathroom

Not dead, just waiting for something to crop up. The wire fence has been taken out with bolt cutters borrowed from a useful and generous neighbour. The worst of the wind fall from the plum is now over, the fruit are rotting in buckets and drawing Red Admirals in surprisingly large numbers for this time of year (surprising to me, that is). The green bin will be used mostly for disposing of leaves from the week after next, as I have about one more load of cuttings to dispose of.

Fingers crossed the weekly collection continues at least until the end of this month; I've lost the letter the council sent and can't remember when we're due to switch over to fortnightly collections.

With the onset of significantly colder weather there's been a lot less activity on the bug front except excepting the above mentioned Red Admirals, the many crane flies and arachnids in many sizes.

In the garden a particular species of spider is now plentiful and hyperactive, stringing webs from one side of the garden to the other, making work in the garden even more traumatic for my generally slothful, particularly arachnophobic husband.

This particular type of spider comes into the house in autumn and is dauntingly large. It has a particular liking for the bath and in other households would simply be washed down the pipe. Not here though. Even the phobe is kind to spiders. And so we sling this one out and it rolls right back in like a drunk to a bar.

And though it is colder the moths have not entirely disappared. In addition to a new crop of the White Shouldered House Moth (see labels to be directed to a photo) these next two have also been in.

This one was rather shy and was almost impossible to photograph. I was rather hoping that the rather distinctive colours and markings would mean a quick and easy id. No such luck, sadly.

Crane flies and plume moths

I'm hacking away and bedding down for winter; as a result all sorts of things are being disturbed and observed if not actually photographed. A dragonfly that swept in and about periodically and were briefly visited by a Painted Lady, the only one I've seen this year. Five years ago we enjoyed swarms of them during a warm spell mid-summer. A crane fly basked in the strong autumn sun which we enjoyed for most of the day and allowed me to get a couple of photographs.

There are something like 300 species of Crane-Fly found in Britain. I'm not planning to id this one.

The flowers on this plant are being devoured by something, unfortunately. I still have no idea what it is.

This very small moth? has taken up residence on the new and still very young climbing rose that is still in a pot and on the patio beside the kitchen.

Another plume moth?

The largest of the recent visitors, similar in size to the large yellow underwing and similar in shape. Possibly that's what it is.

Speckled bush-cricket

This particular 'critter' appeared in the house a couple of days running this week; the first evening it was on the kitchen door. I took her outside and left her amongst the hedge to feed and hopefully survive for a little while. Lo and behold she was back inside the following evening so clearly the loss of one hind leg was not an absolute impediment to getting about. Any better suggestion than this ID?

Three for me to identify

Things are getting serious here, what with all the frenetic gearing up for 11-plus and Christmas and birthdays and so on and so forth (business as usual then). The garden is almost tucked up for winter and I'm setting my self winter homework: to identify these and other odds and sods, only some of which I've posted pictures of (so far)...

This tiny moth was at fence against a fence panel, with a length less than a centimetre so a wing span probably somewhat less than 2cm.

This moth which I have seen in the same part of the garden about a month ago is slightly longer and has a markedly different shape as well as different colouration. The two times I've disturbed it I've been working in the strawberry patch, then picking now preparing for winter.

This was taken indoors. This moth or something very similar has been inside several times this week. I'm guessing it is some kind of 'plume' moth.

Turn it up

Years ago I lived near another river; between us and the river was a stretch of land that had been used immediately after World War II as a dumping ground for material cleared from bombed out parts of London, particularly the East End. As a result this little stretch of land inadvertently became a haven for plant life other wise lost.

Earlier this year when we thought we might have a summer we started to clear a part of the garden for space to put up a pool. The intention had been to level the ground and either use lawn seed or purchase turf. In the end those few warm days of April were false harbingers, misleading us into false hope and expectation. The dug over gound was left lumpen and has now grown over with a mixture of oddments of grass and various more or less noxious forms of plant life include bind weed, ivy, dandelion, morning glory, nettle, bramble and thistle. This stuff probably was there in the ground anyway and has only flourished having been given a new lease after the soil was turned over by yours truly.


A lot of the stuff remains unidentified. I'm planning to cherish the clump of Love in the Mist that has sprung up by the stump of the old gum tree which we cut down a couple of years ago...


and this too, if only I had some idea of what it is called.