Macronoculars... every naturalist should have them!

Way back, it seems now, in July last year, I mentioned at the end of my "Influences" entry....
the binoculars that Pauline got me for my birthday.... my "macronoculars"...

The Macronoculars

These are a pair of Pentax Papilio binoculars... 8.5x magnification.
So... binos, every naturalist usually has some... why blog about them...
well, for a start, they are extremely light and compact...
they give a good, bright view...
they have the same field of view as my 10x binos...
oops....
yes, I've already got binoculars...
but my Papilio binos have a trick up their sleeve...
they are, it says on the side, "EXTREMELY-CLOSE FOCUSING"...
in fact, they focus down to 50cm...
one foot seven and three-quarter inches for oldies!
That is very close...
it gives you views like these:

You can count the hairs on a Bumble Bee's backside...

...the little indentations on an Oil Beetles 'wing' covers...

...the number of spikes on a Violet Ground Beetle's hind leg....

...or simply sit in the sun and watch a bee make cherries!!

But... because the human eye has a feature that cameras don't...
they picture the scene in a very different way.

Our eyes can accommodate very rapidly...
so the picture you see in the binos immediately has much greater depth...
you can look from front to back of the insect... or down into the flower...
without needing to re-focus...
with a camera, you would need a stationary subject...
and use a tripod...
to either close the iris enough to get the depth of focus...
or take three or more pictures... refocusing each time... before stitching them together.
The camera just cannot cut it!


How have Pentax managed this?
Easy, they looked at how the eye looks at things...
the closer your eyes are to a subject...
the closer together they become...
a stereo microscope works the same way...
so Pentax then designed a focusing system that replicates the angle of movement...
You can just see the rails in this picture...

so the front [objective] lenses move closer together as they focus forward.
From this....

through this...

to this...

Does the last picture remind you of anything out there in the wild?
How about this little jumping spider...

I've rotated this... view Matt's original here [apologies now for the 'new'-look flickr... or Fumblr!]

I would thoroughly recommend any serious or keen amateur naturalist to get a pair of these!!

The book in the background of the "macronoculars" pix is a new triple language guide to the vertebrates of Britain, France and the Benelux countries...
but in Dutch you get only the names...
they obviously rely on the Dutch reading English or French for the descriptions!!

More about this book at a later date.

"New kids on the block"

New "Aw Kids" that is....
Our garden plays host to lizards and Lizard Orchids [Himantoglossum hircinum] Orchis bouc....
but, because I haven't been able to mow the front lawn properly,
a new Orchid species has appeared in the grass that would normally have been mowed by now!!

How many years it has been there... who knows?
It will have been cut off in its prime at the first "tonte" of the year for the last ten if it has been there that long!!
Orchids don't just appear... they require the right fungi in the ground as a "symbiotic"* food supplier...
and they take a number of years to grow to the state where there is enough stored in their tubers to achieve flowering...

The first flower spotted is already fading...
before the next flower is fully open.

This is the latest flower... and one to go.

It is an "Insect" Orchid [Ophrys sp.]...
An Early Spider Orchid [Ophrys sphegodes] Ophrys araignée to be accurate...
Very nice... we've been hoping we don't just have Lizard Orchids... as weirdly wonderful as they are...
it now has a yellow marker to make sure I don't chop it to pieces before it has time to seed....


And then, checking the state of the grass by the potager....
I found another... this time it is a Greater Butterfly Orchid [Platanthera chlorantha]Orchis verdâtre....
again, never seen one here before...
but this is another area that gets regularly mown.

As first seen in the late evening...

And a close up of the flower

And I haven't dared total the Lizard Orchids yet... I haven't the time!!
When it is dry I'm working!!
When it is wet... I'm working....
indoors!!
But... there are lots more that I've ever seen.

To mow or not to mow...
that is the question?
Whether 'tis...

No...
I cannot leave the grass to grow willy-nilly...
but I can leave areas to grow each year and mark what appears...
and that I shall do!...
carefully avoiding the known orchids.

Also a post will follow soon about the Lizard Orchids...
my brain said I'd already posted...
computer says "No!"

*  "symbiotic" - this is not correct... the operation is only one way... but I'm having a "senior moment" this morning... Susan?
Susan has corrected my mind.... symbiosis, apparently, can be one sided. Thanks

"It's raining, raining in my part!"

After four days of continuous rain we've had enough...

I've ordered the timber and begun construction...

it will be one hundred q-bits long and forty q-bits wide...
and flat bottomed to cope with the Loire when we get there...

It will be able to hold three 2CVs, two Traction Avants, a pair of Hogs and a flat Audi...
there will be somewhere for a collection of Welsh Lovespoons...
a kitchen to bake in....
a laboratory with a stereo microscope...
a music room...
a 3D printer bay....
and an animal room...
[just hope they'll all get on with each other for the forty days] and...

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARGH!
This is "ridikuluss!"




It just seems to have rained almost constantly since November....
you know it is bad when you see a snail trying to escape....

"My sources tell me it will get wetter!!

UP THE WINDOW!!

Yes, on Sunday we watched a snail gliding up the lounge window...
there wasn't much else to watch.

Yesterday morning I looked out of the bedroom window to see the Brown Fish Owl* sitting in the meadow....
looking wet and depressed....

Long-Eared Owl.... "Wozzat? Something moved... I know it did!!"

and this morning I looked out of the bedroom window to see the Flag Irises flattened and the river up at least two foot and rich Caramac in colour...

The candy bars are on us, folks!!

on coming down to make tea I glanced at the gauge on the wall to see that we've had 17mm in the last 24 hours...
and I looked through the telescope at the "phizzical" gauge to see it almost full.

47mm... I measured it!!

Forty seven millimetrix....

and now they've "alterd fluckr"

Enough, I say, enough!!

---===ooo000OOO000ooo===---

*The Brown Fish Owl [Bubo zeylonensis / Ketupa zeylonensis ] Kétoupa brun


walks more than it flies, looks depressed and can seen plodding along on the riverbanks...
giving a low, mournful hoot...
as it hails from Israel...
this can probably be translated as...
"Fish... I hate fish!! I could murder for a bacon sarnie, me!! Whooooooooooot"

And...

whilst we are all moaning on and on about the weather....

spare a thought for the poor sods in Oklahoma!! 

"Je t'aime!"

How do Green Tortoise Beetles [Cassida viridis] la Casside de la menthe... make more  Green Tortoise Beetles....
the answer is....
with difficulty and very, very slowly.

He's not very well balanced...

These two were "busy" on our "traditional English" mint on Wednesday...
This is only the third time in my life I've ever seen them...
I thought that that was last year when I saw one...
but later identified it as the closely related Cassida sanguinolenta or one of many similar Cassida sp...
they are difficult to identify... but the most common is C. viridis... Susan, of Loire Valley Nature is a "professional splitter" [A Taxonomist]... I'm a "lumper"... I only need to get close to satisfy my brain...

The first time was...
"summer holidays, 1964... on bramble, on wasteland nr. Harrow & Wealdstone Station"...
the second...
can't remember year, plant or place...
mainly because it wasn't the first?
Or because I had so much trouble identifying it the first time...
I do remember the period tho'... late 1980s.

The head is up on this one that Pauline spotted, but the body is well clamped down...

This, though is the first time I have got any colour pictures...
1964... no camera with me... I had a brand new Practica Nova IIb at that time...
and some extension tubes!!
I used to make small pencil sketches in a notebook...
long since lost in a move.
And any picture would have been B&W anyway...
I was into "home-bathroom darkroom" photography in the mid-60s...
and colour chemicals were way out of my pocket money range!!

Even a bucket of water didn't stop these two!
[Actually, I'd just watered the mint when I spotted this pair!!]

Late 80's... no camera with me... Pentax ME Super was my camera then...
left at home along with a neat macro device that I still use.
I used to go out on specific "photographic hunts"...
a roll of 36 slides was costly.

The way the lower beetle can clamp down is visible here...

This time... "nulla problemo".... they were just outside the back door!!
Full choice of equipment close to hand...
and, being digital, film was free!!

Dried off a bit!!

I think that they are a particularly charming beetle....
when they move it is like the Bloody-nosed Beetle...
very deliberate, but surprisingly fast.

They clamp tight to the leaf and look a bit like a leaf gall...
which is what I thought I was drawing in '64...
until the "plant gall" stuck out an antenna...

These ones were "otherwise engaged", but the male[?] was firmly fixed to her[?] back....

I wondered if he has the same "furry feet" that Susan mentions with regard to the Lesser Bloody Nosed Beetle.

You can see a yellow fringe round the visible left foot

 It could well have... for two reasons... mating and clamping to the leaf.

"The Night Visitors"

The weather is warming...
slowly...
v..e...r....y....
slowly.
Too slowly for things "potager"-wise....

But it is bringing out the moths...
and Monday night we had two lovely visitors...
firstly a few pictures of the Giant Peacock Moth [Saturnia pyri] Grand-Paon-de-nuit.
We had them around, around this time last year, so keep your eyes open local folks... or those further south... as Susan pointed out to me last year, these are really on the Northerly edge of their range...

The cat can't believe it!!
Another one, just like last year...
she then asked to go outside...
but, on sniffing the air, decided not!!

Most definitely a male... just look at those "comb-like" antennae... but, read on...

"She's" probably pumping out pheromones... hoping a male will be downwind...
how far downwind I know not... but with the size of those wings...
he might well be many miles away and still reach her...
despite not being able to feed.

Normally it is the male that has the feathery antennae to detect the female's pheromones... but as "he" was still here this morning... and warming up too fast in the morning sunlight [yes... sunlight, folks]... I moved it into a more shaded position... and noticed that "she" had the big, rounded, bulbous body of a female... so, she-he... I'm now not sure...

A cuddly moth?

Or just plain strokeable???

Or... is it an alien??

It is trying to get in!!!

Hope it hasn't got a glasscutter!!!!

The other visitor was equally striking....
a Cream-spot Tiger [Arctia villica / Epicallia villica] Écaille villageoise
We get five different species of Tiger here... Garden, Jersey, Scarlet and Ruby being the other four.
But the Scarlet is the rarest and the Cream-spot follows close behind... this is only the third "known" visit.

Posing with a sloughed snakeskin... but keeping well out of the way of the Black & White moth-muncher anyway!!

Here the striking orange hindwings are being flashed...

... and now the bright scarlet body... these colours are to warn predators that...
"I don't really taste very nice... so go and eat something else... please!!"

I managed to catch this one and get it outside... but it came back to the window...

How's this for a striking colour display?!

and yesterday morning it was still on the front step so I managed to get a few shots of it without using the flash...

Handsome from the side isn't he...

But I'm not sure what he can hide on wearing this jacket!!

He was right where a foot was likely to smear him all over the front step, so I carefully moved him to the ground at the side and managed this final shot into the bargain!

Camouflaged? I think not... perhaps that is why the warning colours are so striking??

A mainly "Picture Post".... but I've tried to put in some relevant information as well...san
and  Susan says it has another trick up its sleeve... an anti-bat sonic avoidance technique...

A Sting in the Tale

A French Garden has blogged today about bees nesting in her "Bee Hotels"....
and we have been watching some of the same activity with our ones here...
blog post will follow soon..
but on the same theme, excerpts from A Sting in the Tale by Dave Goulson have been broadcast on BBC Radio 4 all this week...
each has been a delight to listen to...
we thoroughly recommend listening to them.
Use the "Listen Again" service to do do so.
Episode 1 is here... you have 4 days left to listen.

Our bee block being filled...

If the broadcast excerpts are anything to go by, the book will be a fascinating read... Dave Goulson is the founder of the Bumblebee Conservation Trust and one of the UK's most respected conservationists...
to quote directly from the book review pages...

Dave Goulson has always been obsessed with wildlife, from his childhood menagerie of exotic pets and dabbling in experimental taxidermy to his groundbreaking research into the mysterious ways of the bumblebee and his mission to protect our rarest bees.

Once commonly found in the marshes of Kent, the short-haired bumblebee now only exists in the wilds of New Zealand, the descendants of a few queen bees shipped over in the nineteenth century. Dave Goulson's passionate drive to reintroduce it to its native land is one of the highlights of a book that includes exclusive research into these curious creatures, history's relationship with the bumblebee and advice on how to protect it for all time.

One of the UK's most respected conservationists and the founder of the Bumblebee Conservation Trust, Goulson combines Gerald Durrell-esque tales of a child's growing passion for nature with a deep insight into the crucial importance of the bumblebee. He details the minutiae of life in their nests, sharing fascinating research into the effects intensive farming has had on our bee populations and on the potential dangers if we are to continue down this path.

The book is available from the NHBS and Amazon... on the Amazon page you can look inside, too.... the book reads well!

Four birds and an apology!

Yesterday was a really good day.... if a bit hot!
Not complaining about the heat, really....
I was just not dressed for it, that's all!!
Yes, it was a good day....

On glancing out of the bedroom window to check on what was happening with the world....
as one does...
I saw movement under the old bridge...
definitely not a Moorhen....
in fact they seem to have vanished this year...
probably because the Flag Iris has taken a long time to get going...
having been flattened twice in the last month hasn't helped its growth either....
and, following their nesting there the last two years, it now has a hollow centre...
the result is that they have had to find another place to nest.

However, what I saw, bobbing away at the water's edge, was a new species for us....
a Common Sandpiper [Actitis hypoleucos] Chevalier guignette....
seen in large flocks on the shoreline in winter....
the Common Sandpiper is a bird of solitary habit in summer...
this one was busy poking away in between the stones under the bridge...
and amongst the vegetation that grows at the edge of the bief.
We get both Wood and Green Sandpipers... the Wood occasionally, as it passes North in Spring...
in fact, I put a pair up in the early days of last month as they were feeding in the meadow...
in a pond that should have been a footpath!
The Green Sandpiper is a regular winter visitor to the edge of the millstream [bief]...
and they most probably work up and down the Aigronne, feeding in the soft mud at the edge.

Common Sandpiper [taken at an acute angle through double glazing... !]

The Common Sandpiper is an almost even brown on the top... paler towards the forehead...
and with a clearly visible eyestripe... it has a pale brown chest and is very white underneath.
In flight it has a clearly visible white bar towards the rear of the wing.

The Green Sandpiper [Tringa ochropus] Chevalier culblanc...
the French name being the most descriptive as, when it takes off, the rump is brilliant white...
but the bird itself is very dark, almost black, with a vertically striped chest and again... very white underneath.
The tail looks barred... and, if you get to see it through binos, the upper body and wings have fine, white spots.
The underwings are very dark and contrast clearly with the white of the under body.

The Wood Sandpiper [Tringa glareola] Chevalier sylvain also has a white rump clearly visible as it takes off...
but is much paler with visible white spots on the mid-brown upper body...
and is very pale under the wing when seen in flight...

So, that is three species....
The fourth was another surprise... I heard a warbling call at around tea time...
and called for Pauline, whose ears are far better than mine...
yes, I hadn't been mistaken... Bee-eaters [Merops apiaster] Guêpier d'Europe....

Here's one I took earlier.... 2010 to be precise!

we did the usual scan of the sky just above us...
the place to scan first when you hear them...
they'll most likely be well above you...
but these weren't....
scan lower, try to get some direction...
a bit difficult with all the reflective walls around...
moved to the bridge...
better... clearly towards Moulin de Favier...
and there they were...
flying out from the large Ash besides Richard's étang....

"Feeding the Sheep" - September 2010
This is the Ash tree the Bee-Eaters were in...
we had a better view.... currently the buds have barely broken!!

I went and got the big 'scope and we had good views of them in the tree.
Pauline revealed that she thought she'd heard them on Sunday...
but had dismissed it as strange duck/frog/distant oriole calls...
we just don't get Bee-eaters here at this time of the year!
So...
change that...
we do!

And the apology... a very humble one to the unknown person who had nicked my RSPB badge...
they hadn't... I have slighted them and, indirectly, the local LPO with my accusation!!
I went to get out a summer hat...
I have many hats...
for different needs and occasions....
and...
there was the badge [obviously fixed there by RonRon to play with my mind]...

The feather is from  a Guinea Fowl [Pintade]... perchance my brain is shrinking as a result of an excess of pintade?!

I don't remember moving it from one hat to another... it has always been on my "posh" hat...
all I can think is that as I get older, this "senior moment"  was caused by AABFS...
[advanced age brain fade syndrome / alcohol aided bleedin' fool syndrome]....
so, once again, sorry to the person/people I wrongly accused!
The badge will now stay where I found it... and an LPO badge will arrive on my "posh" hat.