Moth Safari

I've not had much time for blogging recently as I've been out day and night. Doing things like bat-watching and also a moth survey. We went out in the evening with a special box which has a funnel at the top and some old cardboard egg boxes in the bottom and we fixed up a torch and turned this on just after dark. The next morning we went back to see what we would find.On a warm and still night it would be full of insects of various kinds. Unfortunately, May has not been so warm as April was and some of the nights have been quite windy. But we have found and recorded lots of different moths. Here's a pic I took of a poplar hawk moth after we had removed it from the box and put it on a suitable tree:

The photo is not too sharp as there was a strong breeze and its wings were fluttering quite a bit.On that occasion we also found quite a few beautiful white ermines, though all quite small ones and several other common species. 

This was in quite a marshy area so we got things like caddis flies and other insects too, all of which we released - even the biting ones!

In the wet marshy ground I also spotted this:

The beautiful Marsh Cinquefoil with its flower heads showing an almost translucent purple in the pale light. Further out - too far to photograph - I saw the elusive Marsh Andromeda with leaves like Rosemary but flowers like Bell Heather.

Nature is so full of  deep and mysterious things.

Willow Fluff

I’ve been away from the hills where I live visiting family in the flatlands. We went out to a wetland nature reserve, which was a treat for me. It was mostly reed beds but alongside these a marshy woodland with willow trees. The ‘pussy willows’ (Salix caprea) were all in fluff and shedding the cottony white fibres from the flowering catkins which were drifting everywhere on a light breeze. The picture above shows some dead blackthorns covered in beards of grey-green lichen with the white fluff from the catkins all stuck to them. This was truly a magical sight.

I tried to get in amongst the willows but it was not an accessible area. Here’s a picture of one that was nearer the path seen from below with some catkins outlined against the sky.

We took a leisurely stroll all around the reserve, saw swans, herons, geese, several species of ducks along the river and reed buntings in amongst the reedy areas. I spotted a marsh orchid right by the path. In the marshy groves Yellow Flag irises were everywhere and other wetland plants like Ragged Robin, Brooklime, Horsetails …. And others that I might have identified with my book but I was trying the patience of my hosts with my constant lingering over flowers.

On the way out of the reserve the path was carpeted with willow fluff

This is my silver-white memory of a lovely silver-white day on the marshes.

Orlando

Tilda Swinton as Orlando

I've had a sort of virus this last week or so, like flu but no sore throat, runny nose, cough or any anything, just aching joints and feeling all weak and shivery.

So I haven't been able to get out much and take advantage of the magical Mayday weather. I did try to do a bit in my small garden when I thought I was better, but I came in exhausted after less than an hour.

So I've been spending time with Orlando. I first read Virginia Woolf's novel almost by accident and was bowled over by it and have re-read it a few times since. I tried reading her other novels but I couldn't get on with them. The novel starts in Elizabethan England when Orlando is a man. He lives until the twentieth century(and beyond?) and changes into a woman on the way. But the story is told so naturally that you don't question any of this. I am fascinated every time I read it. It is a place on the borders of time, gender and society. You never quite know where you are and neither does Orlando.

There is also a film of the book made in the 1990's with Tilda Swinton as Orlando. She is so good in the part that I have to watch the film again every so often. The way she looks at the camera with a knowing glint in her eye every time something interesting happens is just perfect. I always feel she is doing it just for me and get even more involved in the film. And she just looks so good herself too. The film is very 'arty' and not at all slick like most popular films. It's like a series of vivid paintings and the Director, Sally Potter, said she used a particular 'colour palette' for each scene. It misses out some bits of the book. And sometimes I want things that are in the book to be there. I'm not sure if someone who did not know the book would understand what is going on sometimes, but that might not be too important. The film doesn't really feature the evolving manuscript she works on for 400 years as much as the book. At the end of the book she has a sort of vision up on a hillside looking over the country and plans to bury the manuscript under an old oak tree that had been there when she began. But:“she let her book lie unburied and dishevelled on the ground, and watched the vast view, varied like an ocean floor this evening with the sun lightening it and shadows darkening it.” The film doesn't really convey the feeling of mystical union with Nature that I find in the book. Then an aeroplane arrives (an old-type plane – this is the 1920's) with one of her previous lovers in it. In the film this appears as a golden figure in the sky and is left to speak for itself. So after I watched the film I re-read the end of the book. For completeness.

The DVD box has another disk in it with gallery pictures and things including an interview with Sally Potter. I watched all this stuff too, sipped a few sloe gins and told myself I would feel better soon and get back to my haunts in the woods once again, and maybe meet Orlando there.