Callum’s Day Out at Port Lympne Zoo

On Tuesday I went with Nana and Gramps to Port Lympne wild animal park and gardens. First we went on the safari and saw lots of animals like Bongo’s and Ostriches and Rhinos and girafes and lots of other animals.

Here are some photographs that I took of the animals.

We all went to whatch the Gorillas having their snack. The snack was nuts which was thrown off the top of their enclosure then two

squirrels came along and took two big big nuts, well for their size anyway.

Then gramps said” quick it closes at 5 oclock”  so we went to the shop and very kindly Nana and gramps  bought me a Elephant and a Rhino but it actually closed at 6 oclock so we could have stayed for a hour longer.  Silly gramps!

typed by CALLUM COLLINS

The Newt

Callum and Gramps were cleaning out the fish pond this morning and we decided to get a bucket and see what pond life we could find.

We found Pond Skaters and a water bug (unidentified) and this Newt:

Callum holding the Newt

We were scooping the duck weed off the top of the pond when we found this newt caught in the net.

Callum holding the newt

We both took turns in holding the newt so we could get a photograph of it.

I took the above two photographs and Callum took this one of me holding the newt:

Gramps holding newt - photograph by Callum (on my Canon 350D)

We returned the Newt to the pond and the Pond Skaters while not forgetting the water bug (unidentified).

A good mornings work with Callum’s help cleaning the pond filter and getting rid the duck weed.

Callum assisted in writing this post.

Bubble Blowing Blow Fly

Blow Fly blowing a bubble

I found this fly blowing bubbles early one evening. I don’t know why he was doing his but he blew quite a few as I watched him.

Here are some more my recently photographed visitors or residents in our garden:

In order these are: Bumble Bee close-up; Crane Fly; Stretch Spider.

These are: Issus-coleoptratus (2);Baby Garden Spiders.

Moth (2); Hover Fly

The garden continues to be busy with a wide variety of visiting or resident insects.

We are looking after our grandchildren for a couple of weeks during the school holidays so I might enlist their help in producing posts for this blog.  That’s if we do anything exciting with them!

I know the scalextrics has got to be laid out and the beach (every day!) has been planned by them.

I hope my daily read of the newspaper is also ’scheduled’!

The “I haven’t got a clue” Flowers

Mae plants all the things in our garden. I am not allowed to touch them or even weed as “you don’t know a flower from a weed”.  I am left to mow the grass and only dig holes as required, oh, and do all the watering!

I therefore rely on Mae to tell me what flower is what.  My knowledge of flowers is limited.  I know the main ones like roses, lilies, chrysanths and such like but she is the one who buys them and plants them, and a nice job she does too!

Take these two flowers. Both are the same variety.

The “I haven’t got a clue” flowers.

That was Mae’s response to my query.

Here’s another one:

Another of Mae’s ‘don’t knows‘

I know these three:

Orange Lily;                      Antirrhinum;                Maroon Holyhock

The Snap Dragon (Antirrhinum) is one of my favourites from childhood. If you take the flower from the stem and hold it’s side and squeeze gently it opens and closes. We had great fun as children making silly voices while holding meaningless conversations.

The Orange Lily was a bit late flowering this year as it had been moved to a larger tub but still put on a lovely display.

I got into trouble after photographing this flower. It was a bit blustery so I used my plamp (see a much earlier post) to stabilise the stem and my ring flash as it was in the shade.  I moved the tripod having finished taking the photographs but forgot the plamp and snapped the stem. Mae was not too impressed but the flower gave a nice display on the kitchen window sill.

Any help with naming these flowers would be appreciated. I have looked on line but cannot identify them.

I think a trip to the garden centre (if Mae can remember what one) from whence they came might help!

Cricket, Grasshopper or Giant Greenfly?

I have a book called  ‘A Field guide in Colour to Insects‘. (over 800 species illustrated in full colour – nice drawings and paintings). I have had it for years, since the ’70’s anyway. It cost £2.95 then.

It is the first place I look to identify insects I find.  Trouble is – some of the insects I find and photograph do not look the same as those in the book!   Even doing a ‘google’ does not help at times.

I found this insect yesterday:

Cricket, Grasshopper?

It looks like a giant greenfly – it’s not though!

If some-one could help me identify this insect I would be grateful.

I also found this pair ‘up to no good’ :

Soldier Beetles mating.

I found this pair wandering on the grass locked together like this but I had difficulty photographing them so I put a leaf in their way and they climbed on it and I placed them on our garden table where they continued their behaviour as I photographed them.

Please click on an image to see it full size.

This is why I like wandering around the garden in the early evening. I just never know what I may find in our back garden.

One of those Months!

You may have noticed that I have been very quiet since my last post a month ago.

I had plans to tell you about my trip to London to see the Royal Academy Summer Show ,  Henry’s birthday Party and Joseph’s School Fete and not forgetting Father’s Day. Thanks for my presents Janet and Sharon. They were a book on How to be a Bad Bird Watcher by Simon Barnes (My Father taught me all he knew) and a ‘bug’ house, (pictured).

Here is a compilation in photos of what I would have told you about:

All the above went well and after such a busy weekend I was all set to put them in a post but then on the following Tuesday I was stricken by Gastric Flu.  Now, I am sure you don’t really need a description of the effects of gastroenteritus but, if  it was  ‘flu’, I would much rather be sneezing via the nose!!!!

This laid me low for two weeks and a bit longer to fully recover. The only upside is that I lost 10lbs in weight. So, to aid recovery I have spent these lovely sunny days sitting on the patio watching the activity (a bit meagre with one Dunnock, a rather straggly looking Blue Tit and a Blackbird being the only visitors).  I have taken some more images of insects etc which I will show later.

You have also missed me telling you about the Pfizer Wind Orchestra playing at St.George’s Church, Deal  and me being half of a Recorder Duo at Salutation Gardens, Sandwich in aid of the Deal Music Festival.

I have been busy as you can see but, lacking the will to live for a couple of weeks, I have got behind with my posts.

This is all set to change and, hopefully, you can look forward to regular posts from now on.

Ladybird 1 – Ants 3

I saw this 7 spot ladybird making it’s slow way along a plant stem. Minding it’s own business.

As it made his way down the stalk it didn’t know it was being watched – and not only by me:

The Ladybird was quickly surrounded by three ants:

Who harrassed it:

The ants kept this up for quite a while and all the ladybird could do was put up with it.

I eventually felt sorry for it and allowed it to escape by brushing it off the stalk.

All heart you see, that’s me!

Mind you, I could have done it much earlier but  I wouldn’t have got these photographs if I had – would I!

Holy Blooms

St. Nicholas Church at Wade in Thanet held a Flower Festival over the weekend.

Church Entrance and Interior:

We went along. The show was entitled ‘The Fragrance of Jesus’ and each display was accompanied by words from the New Testament.

Taking photographs proved a bit of a challenge as I didn’t want to use a flash but for a couple I had to use my ring flash because of the low lighting.  The light from the stained glass windows made an interesting background to the displays.

Bridge Chapel:

This little area of the church is where ancestors of Sir Robert Bridges (Poet Laureate) are interred.

Here are a few of the displays

Display Number 14:

Display 2:

Display 3 – Allium:

Allium close-up:

Star Gazer Lily:

Gerbera:

A lovely display that I enjoyed looking at and photographing.

I trust you enjoy them as well.

Counting the Early Birds

I was up early this morning to take part in the RSPB (Royal Society for Protection of Birds) Nature Count.

The object of the exercise is to spend an hour watching and recording all birds in your garden (if you don’t have a garden then a park or other likewise area will do).

I was up at 6.15am and was sat  in my hide from 7am to 8am.    The light wasn’t too good for photography but I did manage to get a photograph of a Jay.  They are very skittish and quickly fly off especially when they spot movement.

A Jay helps himself to a peanut:

I also had four Magpies in the trees at the bottom of our garden:

Collared Dove and Three of the Magpies:

I counted:

Magpies – 4

Robin – 1

Great Tit – 1

Dunnock – 1

Collared Dove – 1

Feral Pigeons – 1

Black Bird – 1

Not too bad a number.

Our Squirrel also spent time feeding heartily on the bird seed. The Jay had already taken the peanuts I put out for him.

Squirrel on bird feeder tray:

It was a pleasant hour although the bird count was low.

There is something about getting up early. The peace and quiet, the morning dew and the gradual warming from the sun accompanied by a cheerful blackbird singing in it’s rays . . . . . . . . well, you get the idea!

A Flower Festival was next on the agenda – thats for my next post.

Busy, Busy, Busy.

I have been fairly busy lately what with sorting out the photographs I took at a  recent wedding and playing the flute for Pfizer Wind Orchestra and Knyghtryders Folk Group plus the gardening, croquet, housework and all other things Mae wants doing.  All this means that, although I have been taking photographs in the garden,  I haven’t had the time to look through them or sort them out.

I have now put other tasks to one side  to do just that. Here are some of my favourite images of visitors to and residents in our garden in recent weeks. (Click on an image to view it full size – it’s worth it!).

There are a few I haven’t seen in the garden before.

It is fascinating to wander around the garden and see the variety of insects, bugs and other creatures that come and go and photograph them.

One of my projects is to catalogue them and identify them correctly (I am not the worlds best at identification) and put them on the www in some form or another.

When that happens I’ll let you know.