Looks like I jumped ship just in time:
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Wednesday 26th August, 2009
Monday 24th August, 2009
We apologise for the loss of signal…
Life's been a bit full of other stuff for a while now, so the blogging has had to take a back-seat for a few weeks. I'll try to catch up over the next few days, starting now...
This year has been a good one for the number of butterflies in our garden, but not so good for the range of species. So far, the list of species found is as follows:
- Small Skipper Thymelicus sylvestris
- Large White Pieris brassicae
- Small White Pieris rapae
- Holly Blue Celastrina argiolus
- Painted Lady Cynthia cardui
- Small Tortoiseshell Aglaise urticae
- Red Admiral Vanessa atalanta
- Peacock Inachis io
- Speckled Wood Pararge aegeria
- Wall Lasiommata megera
- Gatekeeper Pyronia tithonus
- Meadow Brown Maniola jurtina
- Small Heath Coenonympha pamphilus
- Large Skipper Ochlodes venata
- Brimstone Gonepteryx rhamni
- Green-veined White Pieris napi
- Orange Tip Anthocharis cardamines
- Small Copper Lycaena phlaeas
- Common Blue Polyommatus icarus
EDIT: Just to let you know that Old Winter has blogged about his butterflies today at http://oldwinteramble.blogspot.com/2009/08/butterflies-july-aug-2009.html
Monday 17th August, 2009
I am NOT a wildlife repair expert, Brian!
I was well into our garden butterfly survey (more on this in a later post) when I was interrupted again by another live contribution from next-door. Not content with his donation of a perfectly good young hedgehog ("it was curled up in a ball and I thought it was dead, so I brought it to you to see if you could look after it"), he's now given me this poor critter:
It seems to be intact with no broken bones as far as we can tell, but it's weak, flightless and has no parents around. We'll do what we can for it, but I suspect that we'll have to let nature take charge soon.
Friday 14th August, 2009
Thursday 13th August, 2009
Perseid party-pooper
According to the weather forecast on Monday, the night skies were to be fairly cloudy on Tuesday and mainly clear on Wednesday. Sadly, it didn't turn out that way. On Tuesday night there were plenty of clear spells during which I managed to sneak out for a quick look around, and there were plenty of Perseid meteors about. I wasn't set up for taking pics, as my camera was off-line due to a sensor-cleaning session. I figured that I could wait another day.
Last night's planned observing session turned out to be a waste of time, as we had fairly comprehensive cloud-coverage here all night. True, there were a few gaps through which the odd trail could be seen, and the clag was thin enough to see when a passing meteor was lighting up the tops of the clouds, but there was no point in setting up the camera.
According to the current forecast there's not much chance that I'll catch the tail-end of the show tonight.
Next year, maybe?
Monday 3rd August, 2009
Deep and meaningful stuff
How many five year olds could you take in a fight? 17
What would you taste like to a cannibal? Broiled tofu
Would you eat your buddies in a blizzard? 59%
What are your chances of surviving a zombie apocalypse? 52%
Would you make a good human shield? 55%
Edited to add my results. Looks like I'm just an average bloke 
