A Winter’s Tale

Wildlife posts will be posted on Moths Etc in future. I hope you will follow me there.

Moths etc.

A flurry of garden activity. The squirrels are playing kiss-chase or possibly get off my patch. I also spotted a squirrel collecting leaves, presumably for his drey. I am indebted to the squirrels for not gnawing through the cables that connect my moth trap to the mains. Very considerate. Although they are considered vermin I do find them entertaining. An erstwhile colleague of mine had one inside the engine compartment of his car and they chewed his battery cables to shreds. I think I would issue an eviction order if they tried that with our cars.

A Robin was observed clearing a wall cavity. Could this be an early sign of nest building?

I have finally seen the Firecrest again. The very poor photo (usual excuses: uncooperative bird, poor light, high ISO etc. etc.) shows yellow feet. As a self-confessed Luddite I went through my books and could not see…

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Vienna

Blogged to wrong blog – sorry!

Moths etc.

A quick post to mark our arrival in Vienna.

Looking for Harry. This is popular in my FB feed 😊

More to come for sure.

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If you go down to the woods today

Well I saw no teddy bears but I did find a couple of other things of interest.

The most interesting thing was jelly. Some lumps of opaque jelly on rotting wood. Some of the jelly globules had black dots in them and immediately I thought of frog spawn. But in January? On rotting wood? So I posted the photo on Facebook and quickly received the reply ‘regurgitated frogspawn’. Then another more specific reply, most likely Exidia thuretiana but if you can see any white crystals inside them it makes them Myxarium nucleatum. And then again Looks like some very old Bird’s Nest Fungus in the bottom right too! (The specific IDs came from Richard Shotbolt).

My curiosity led me to crop the image and look at the Bird’s Nest Fungus more closely. Then I noticed the black dots in the jelly looked like tiny bugs. So I am seeking advice again. What do you think? What have I photographed here?I also photographed a Lesser Celandine – very early indeed. And this beautiful lichen, which may be Graphis scripta.

Other efforts produced less than satisfactory results but at least I enjoyed the sunshine. And no rockets launched last night. Three days to go until we head off to Vienna. Chores tomorrow. A trip to Heathrow on Thursday and taking Lulu to her hotel on Friday. So passes the week. And only Goldcrest and Sparrowhawk added to the garden list today. This is getting serious.