Category: nature

This morning I was feeling particularly fibromyalgy (of course it’s a real word), and didn’t have the attention span or strength of body to carry on with my sewing. I did a few bits and bobs on the computer, but was gradually becoming more and more cross with myself for being ill. So it seemed sensible to get out, and go for a walk.

CAUTION: There is one picture of a spider in this post, a bit further down.

It was a very slow walk (half a mile in an hour and a half), but I had to keep stopping to look at small things. This fuzzy fellow is the caterpillar of the Buff Tip Moth, and he had a lot of friends who were steadily devouring a very small oak tree.

This is not an oak leaf (unhelpfully, I can’t remember what it is now), but I love the way you can see the cell structure from underneath. This is exactly the sort of thing I want to look at with my microscope, although I haven’t yet got around to either collecting a bunch of stuff to look at, or dragging my netbook around the lake with me.

I don’t know what type of spider this is, because I’m sufficiently arachnophobic that I don’t want to have to look up lots of different pictures of spiders to find out. If anyone could tell me, that would be lovely! Despite the slightly gruesome nature of the spider wrapping up its lunch (and the scariness of the spider itself), I thought this was rather a magical picture, with the web framed by leaves and little flecks of light twinkling through from the background.

One problem I am finding with this camera (Canon Powershot G12) is its general unwillingness to focus where I want it to unless it’s set entirely to automatic. Even then, it sometimes takes a bit of fiddling about. I usually take photos in Aperture Priority mode, because I like shots like this with a very shallow depth of field. Trying to combine that with macro shots though, argh, there were times when I could cheerfully have thrown the camera into the lake. And don’t even talk to me about the manual focus – that was even worse than repeatedly half-pressing the button and hoping for the best! So the vast majority of these photos were taken with the camera set to fully automatic, because I simply didn’t have the patience to fiddle.

Once again, more unidentified insects. I saw yellow spots all over the top of the leaf, and pointed the camera underneath to see what I could find. This is another one where I should have brought the leaf home with me, to check it out under the microscope! But I didn’t really want whatever those insects are to hatch out in my Shed. Or die because I’d taken the leaf off the tree.

I think this is a fragment of a pigeon’s egg. It’s very common to find them on the paths around the lake. There are A LOT of wood pigeons in the woods (unsurprisingly!), and as well as magpies and other predators finding the eggs tasty, pigeons will also push eggs out of the nest if they’re infertile. I like the way you can see the delicate cracks showing up in the membrane of this little piece.

And finally, more insect-related weirdness. The fluffy spiky things on this dog rose are moss galls, or “Robin’s pincushions”. They’re caused by a wasp laying eggs into the bud of the rose, which causes the cellular structure of the plant to change. The same thing happens to oak trees, and I know that oak galls can be used for dyeing. Apparently you can use these rose galls too, after they’ve dried out and the wasp larvae have vacated them. Not sure I’d fancy trying to collect them though – all the galls on this plant were a very long way up!

I know the weather’s turned a bit wet, but think I need to make it my mission to get outdoors and take a lot more photos. I’ve neglected my camera a lot this year, mainly thanks to spending more time at work since the spring, and then being too tired or too busy to go wandering around in the woods. I’d also like to get some actual prints made, so that I can stick them into sketchbooks and use them as inspiration for other work. Time to get uploading to Photobox I think, unless anybody’s got a recommendation for somewhere different?