Trip to London 1

 We preceded a visit to the theatre in London on Wednesday with a look round the Portrait Gallery. It has undergone a lot of renovation work in recent years and now has special blinds that protect the artworks from damage by the sun but also create some fascinating silhouettes. A brief walk to our lunch stop at Ham Yard and then to the Harold Pinter theatre to see The Years - a wonderfully produced and acted play but not for the faint-hearted in places. 

Toft Garden Trees 1

After sessions at Paxton Pits identifying trees, I decided a catalogue of what is in my Toft (Cambridgeshire) garden would be a good plan. Hopefully this first batch are correct - note to self - label twigs as I remove from tree/bush as some are very difficult to distinguish.  We start with an oak kindly given to me as a birthday present about 20 years ago, now a fair-sized tree that needs the leader shoot cut back every year or two - host to a huge number of insects - thanks Tricia Kreyer

Mosses and Lichens at Paxton

The wetter wooded areas of Paxton Pits rival Wistman's wood in Devon for the variety and amount of lichens and mosses attached to the trees. The first image is a single shot but many of the others are focus-stacked landscapes to give maximum depth of field. I enjoyed the variety of greens and shapes of fallen trees etc

Lichens in Toft

Slowly building up a library of the lichens growing in our village. Here a few from our garden and Toft Wood - experimenting with backgrounds etc. Still to add genus/species names!!

First Insects of 2025

Yesterday's sun had a real warmth to it and the insects responded visiting this Clematis cirrhosa flowering against a south-facing fence. I am pretty certain that it is a Buff-tailed Bumblebee but was very small for a Queen. The most numerous visitors were honey bees stocking up on nectar and pollen. As always a few blow flies around (Calliphora vicina) - one is covered in pollen illustrating their importance as pollinators. (The warm sunshine and insect visitors were appropriate for the day of Richard Revel's funeral emphasising his very large contribution to entomology and his delight at any glimpse of the approach of spring)

Madingley Hall Gardens

There are plenty of spring flowers already in flower at Madingley Hall Gardens including the snowdrops and the great collection of Hellebores. Unfortunately the woodland walk, which is a mass of snowdrops, is closed at the moment as there is tree surgery being done. Hopefully they will reopen in a couple of weeks and the snowdops will still be in flower.