Scottish Creepy crawlies

I took a few photos of insects and other mini beasts when i was in Scotland. Luckily, Scottish insects don't seem to mind the rain.

I'm pretty sure this hoverfly is Syrphus vitripennis
Its a Batesian mimic of a wasp - ie it shares the warning colours and general apprearance but can't actually defend itself with a sting.



This is a small hoverfly perched on a dandelion flower, but I have no idea which speciesA green bottle fly Phaenicia sericata -they are carrion eaters and lay their eggs in rotting meat or wounds. The maggots can actually be used to clean wounds as they do not eat healthy flesh -though they are rarely used in medicine now.

Their brilliant emerald metallic colours are really pretty.




I found quite a few of these bugs- they looked really delicate and graceful. It turns out that they are female scorpion flies Panorpa communis.

I didn't see any male scorpion flies around- they are more immediately recognisable because they have a curled up 'scorpion sting' which is not in fact venomous -its the male fly's genital area.

This is another female sitting on some ivy leaves.

A little black and green bug that I didn't manage to identify. It seemed to be pushing a white thing [an egg?] in the first photo.
It looks quite like a shield bug but I'm not sure .

A sealed up snail shell - i think its probably Cepaea hortensis
This is probably the millipede Schizophyllum sabulosum -it has two distinctive pale lines running down its back. They don't actually have thousand legs - just several hundred, with two pairs to each body segement.


Some cuckoospit on cleavers plant. Cleavers is an interesting plant- we used to call it 'sticky willie'
Tiny hairs on the plant leaves and stem will hook on to clothes and animal fur -and can even just about manage to hook on to skin though not very securely.
We used to pick clumps of it and throw it on each other when we were kids as its stickiness always amused us . We'd also use it to play 'tig' [tag] dn the person who had been tagged with the stckywillie had to peel it off and try and stick it on another victim.

The small ball-like seeds were sticky as well- a useful way of diffusing the plant -and they were harder to remove from clothes than the stems and leaves.


Cuckoo spit [which my kids though was completely gross] is the bubble home of an immature froghopper bug.

The frogghopper produces the froth [cuckoo spit] to hide in and also to prevent its body from drying out. Apparently the 'spit' tastes foul as an additional deterrant for predators [though i've never tried it]

I didn't have the heart to poke through the bubbles and disturb the beastie.




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Photo Friday- health

I couldn't think of anything else to use for teh photo friday topic , so I resorted to taking a photo of an x-ray i had done last year when I damaged my shoulder.

Thankfully, after all the physiotherapy it has healed well- though since these things are often recur , i have to be careful with it. It twinges if I overdo things- and I try to avoid lifting things awkwardly.

After i had these x-rays taken I was in agony from being poked and prodded and forced to adjuist my shoulder into werid positions, but i was still still impressed by how amazing the bones look in x-rays.




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Photo Friday -Automotive

I'm not really a car lover- I don't drive and don't have any urge to learn.
I can recognise VW Beetles old and new, and 2 CVs and Smart cars but my car identification skills for other vehicles are on the lines of red car, blue car or big car, boxy car, little car.

So it was a sheer fluke that i had anything suitable for the topic. Both the photos were taken in rainy Scotland the other week.

I suppose it shows the extremes of hire cars that are popular at the moment in Scotland for celebrations such as weddings and Prom nights.


This stretch Humvee was parked outside the Police station. What a monster of a car - I'd never seen anything like it before.

This is a vintage [1930s?] Beauford convertible that my cousin hired for her wedding day - a lovely deep blue colour. A pity the top had to stay up becuase of the heavy rain and biting cold.
I cropped in on the headlamps - i think i am the person on the right reflected in the chrome. I think this is the only time I appear in any of the photos from the wedding.




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Bluebell wood

Common Bluebells also known as Wild Hyacinths or English Bluebells [Hyacinthoides nonscripta ] are a protected species in Britain and wild bulbs cannot be dug up or sold -it seems that for a while the wild plants were being dug up and sold [for use in gardens] and this meant that the spring time sight of the bluebell wood was becoming rare.


The comoon bluebell is a native plant in Scotland but its quite different from the plant known as the Scottish Bluebell -which is actually a harebell [Campanula rotundifolia] Somewhat confusing - but they don't flower at the same time of year and they grow in different places and they look quite distinct.

Harebells grow in grassy heathland areas and flower in the height of summer, and have the sort of flowers that loook like something a Victorian fairy would wear as a hat.

I remember as a child, putting the harebell flowers on my fingers and making mini puppets- however they were very thin and papery so they required careful handling or they would tear.

Common bluebells/wild hyacinths grow from bulbs underground and flower again and again each year. They are sometimes called crawflowers [crow flowers] or craw-taes [crows toes] in Scots

The very narrow flower bells seem to grow about 10 to a stalk which droops considerably. They have quite strong scent, similar to a cultivated hyacinth but a bit more subtle.

We used to go for walks in April and May to various the bluebell woods to pick some of the flowers and there used to be thousand upon thousand of violet-blue flowers nodding in the breeze. From a distance the flowers looked like thick blue carpet under the trees.


The bluebells in the wood at Chatelherault Country Park weren't growing as densely as I've seen them in some places but it was still nice to walk in the rain and look at the bluebells under the trees.
The treecover here changes from broadleaved trees to conifers and although bluebells can grow under most conditions, they don't grow in the acidic soils and really low light conditions found under conifers- its quite a marked change from green and blue to a barren looking brown earth in the background.

No bluebells here but I liked how the tree was shadowed by a similar shaped cloud. This was taken on a brief pause between showers. It looks like a brilliant summer day -but the camera lies sometimes- or at least is economical with the truth.
I also took quite a few photos of a variety of creepy crawlies and plants that I'll post another time.



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Up above the world so high

I always like to take photos if i get a chance when flying. On the flight from Nice to Luton the weather was pretty clear and we had a good view of the mountains and valleys -which look quite different when mostly snow free.

The window wasn't as clean as it could have been but the photos turned out ok.

It would be nice to be able to find out what hills and valleys are in the pictures but unfortunately i don't have a clue [apart from it being scenery north of Nice].

I was impressed with this very long valley stretching off to the blue-grey mountains.



A shallower vally in the higher country. The mountains are closer now and some snowy caps are just visible.
The scenery here was quite dramatic and so different with the light dusting of snow and the dark rocks and cliffs.




Jack Frost at work on the plane windows.

I wasn't sure if I'd manage to get any decent photos as I knew from experience that the frost doesn't last long on these short flights. However on this flight, the frost developed really well


A macro shot of the frost which was on the point of disappearing again .
The intense cobalt blue sky colour always amazes me. The frost had almost disappeared by the time we reached the northern coast of France.

I think this is the close to the delta of the Somme river , made famous by the World War 1 battle

This is a photo of the same river delta showing the huge amounts of sediment and mud flats

After passing the French coast the clouds thickened and the fasten seat belt sign came on so no more sky photos. The sky was too rainy and cloudy and dark on the other three flights for taking photos.
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Photo Friday - poverty

I took this photo in Scotland the other week. Buckfast Tonic Wine is a an alcoholic drink made by monks and sold in most places as a pick me up for fairly elderly people.

In the West of Scotland its drunk by the young, poor and hopeless who drink 'buckie' to get absolutely 'blootered' -ie mind numbingly drunk.

'Buckie' is the fuel of fights and stabbings by neds and the odd feature of buckie drinkers is that so many of them still want to drink it when they are of legal age to drink - which is why its often sold by the glass in pubs in poor areas.

Some areas of Scotland have tried to prevent its sale in off-licences but I suppose other cheap alcohol is abused if the 'buckie' supply is cut off.



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Illustration Friday- Portrait- Frida Kahlo

This weeks topic is 'Portrait'. It was easy enough to decide what [or rather who] to paint but not so easy to decide 'how' to paint .

I chose to paint the Mexican artist, Frida Kahlo, because about a third of her artworks are self portraits so I thought it would be interesting to see what I came up with.

Frida Kahlo was born on July 6th 1907 in Mexico City. She had polio at age 6 which left one leg weakened.

Later at age 18 , she was involved in a serious bus crash which left her with devastating injuries to her pelvis, spine, legs and uterus. These injuries left her in almost constant pain, and required many operations and periods of immobility throught the rest of her life.


She poured her pain and strength into her art : the agony and will to live she used to overcome her injuries and the death of her hopes of motherhood.

Her works are sometimes described as surreal becuase she used mythological and fantastic elements to express herself though she rejected this label herself.

She married the painter Diegio Rivera in 1929 in a union described by as the marriage of an 'elephant and dove' due to their very different sizes.
Their marriage was turbulent with numerous affairs and raging arguements - and ended in a very brief divorce before they remarried in 1940.

Frida started wearing traditional Mexican dresses and jewellery which gave her a very exotic look. She did not remove her light moustache or pluck the hairs which grew between her eyebrows [the famous 'unibrow'] which added to uer unusual looks. She emphasised the unibrow and moustache in her self portraits- they are not so obvious in photographs.

Both Frida and Diego were very inolved in politics and they sheltered the Communist Leon Trotsky and his wife until his assassination. Both Frida and Diego were considered suspects at the time but were released.

Frida Kahlo died on July 13th 1954 -possibly of a pulmonary embolism or effects of cancer, though some suspect that she committed suicide [based on the entry in her diary a few days earlier which read "I hope the exit is joyful; and I hope never to return."]

Frida Kahlo's immense strength of will , lust for life and passion for her art is an enormous insiration for me.
I wanted to give her an Aztec look becuase of the Aztec influences in her work - which is why i gave her a background which could almost be a feathered headdress or alternatively jungle leaves.

Her necklace is 'engraved' with an Aztec Fertility Goddess from a codex. Her dress and shawl echo the colours of the Mexican flag.





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Photo Friday- New

I was sure I'd manage to find something suitable for the topic in the photos I took in Scotland.

This is my cousin Yvonne and her husband Munro -a newly married couple, just a week ago today.

It was a bitterly cold day with torrential rain and not helped by the church heating being broken [or at least that's what was said]. Still the bride was absolutely gorgeous and the groom very handsome in his black kilt despite the weather.

Confetti and some bubbles were still flying around when I took the photos. I liked the contrast between Munro's black jacket and Yvonne's white dress.





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Photo Friday- Home

Its quite appropriate that the photo friday topic was 'home' since I've just come home to Nice from Scotland .

I felt i had to squeeze in an entry for this even though it was towards the end of the photo friday week.

I have always tried to feel at home wherever my kids and husband are based so even though we have just moved to Nice, I do feel at home there. In fact, visiting Antibes seems slightly odd now- despite living there for10 years. It seems i have pulled up my roots and transplanted them to Nice.

I still have a strong connection to Southern Scotland though- especially the Clyde Valley where I grew up. Having a huge extended family living in the area probably helps the homecoming feeling , but i also have a strong connection to the beautiful land itself.

When i was in Scotland i tried to take a photo of my favourite scenery as a child: the fields and orchards and River Clyde that i could see from my bedroom window.

However, a new wood has been planted which means that the exact view isn't easily visible so i had to walk for a couple of minutes along the road to take these photos.

I used to play in these fields- making dens, climbing trees and collecting flowers to make 'perfume'.

The weather was very poor-so lots of rain and wind -but the scenery was beautiful as always.


This is one of the roads that leads down to the River Clyde -it always seemed like the doorway to adventure when i was small.

I was lucky to have had grandparents that had a deep love and knowledge of the natural world and parents who were willing to take my sisters and our friends for walks to explore the local area and collect berries. I don't think I really appreciated it at the time.



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Strawberries

Things have been hectic around here .
My daughter has had to get a dossier ready for her juniour college application so we have been busy, busy, busy filling in forms , going to open days and researching her various options.

She decided that she wants to do a specialised course in applied art so we have been working on that for several weeks ; lots of practise and critiquing of her art work. Its been hard work getting her up to speed, as although she is very talented in art and design [particularly digital artwork] , she has mostly done her own thing , with only a few questions when she wants to know something specific.

For her college portfolio she needed to have collage, drawing and painting with natural media pieces and it turned out that the art teaching she has had at school has been very limited.

Anyway, after a marathon effort she produced some excellent artwork - and we submitted the dossier yesterday, so we are keeping everything crossed that she gets a place.

Now that is finished I will be taking a break and going to Scotland for a few days to visit family.

May is usually a good time to visit scotland as its usually the best weather and everything is green and blossoming.

I have my camera with me and hope to bring back los of interesting photos.

In the mean time i will leave you with some macro photos of strawberries that i took the other day.

I bought the strawberries at the local fruit market. They are from local producers and were amazingly tasty- a real taste of summer.

There is no comparison between real strawberries with the uniform giant red things found in a lot of supermarkets that are force ripened and taste of water and nothing.



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Photo Friday - masterpiece

I couldn't decide what to post for the photo friday-masterpiece challenge until i remembered that i'd taken photos of the 'Diana Fountain' in Hyde Park.

Its more formally known as the Diana, Princess of Wales Memorial Fountain and its a really interesting but controversial public artwork.

I must admit that i hadn't intended to visit the fountain before we stumbled across it. It seemed like a very unimpressive and even boring fountain from the articles and photos i'd seen.

Even as we walked towards the fountain, it looked pretty uninspiring. At first, I thought it was a circular or oval path as the water is not very visible from a distance and i had been busy taking photos of the birds, frosty leaves and squirrels and must have missed the signposts.

Once inside the gates it still didn't look like much -but its something that has to be seen and heard from close quarters to really appreciate.
I changed from being unimpressed and skeptical about the fountain to being fascinated and moved by it.

Its a fabulous work of art- a poem in sound, flickering light and bubbling water.

The water is stirred and stilled by changes in the granite structure - it changes from turbulent to calm: with tranquil stretches, bubbles , gentle ripples, waterfalls and rapids .

The different water sounds and the sparkle of light on water definitely add to the impact of piece.









Its supposed to symbolise the up and down life of Princess Diana - and i think overall it works.


A frosty morning in December might not have been the best time of year to see the fountain since people are welcome to dip their feet in the water.

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Illustration Friday- Fat hen

I wasn't very keen on this topic - 'fat' seemed like a really strange choice to me. Maybe because my old english teacher [imagine someone like Miss Jean Brodie but without the attempts at glamour] drummed into us that using words like 'fat' and 'nice' displayed a very poor imagination, not to mention a limited vocabulary.

I usually try to think of things that stretch the topic a bit - and i pondered on doing something along the lines of an aquatic mammal and going with blubber rather than fat.

I also thought about fat soluble vitamins and essential fatty acids but i wasn't really sure what i would do for them.

In the end the only thing i could really work up an interest in painting on the theme of fat was a fat red hen since there are lots of stories and nursery rhymes with fat hens - and of course that also made me think of the plant 'fat-hen' Chenopodium album.

Fat-hen is also known as goosefoot, muckweed and lamb's quarters - and it used to be used as a human food in Britian from the Neolithic until the late middle ages. The leaves were collected and cooked somewhat like spinach and the seeds were cooked like lentils or ground into flour.

It was also used a fodder for hens -hence the name 'fat-hen'. Now the plant is generally considered a destructive weed.

I'ev painted a broody fat hen and quickly added some fat hen branches with its pale knobbly flowers.




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Birds at Parc phoenix

Yesterday's Photo Friday swans reminded me i had some other bird photos to post.

I think i hadn't posted them sooner becuase i was in a bit of a quandry about some of them being in captivity. However , then I read the 2006 red list about newly endangered and at risk species and thought thats since these are being partly kept for increasing the gene pool for wild animals and are mainly captive reared that probably was a good thing.


This is a grey crowned crane Balearica regulorum -an African bird that is a quite primitive crane which can still nest in trees.
They have CITES II status which means that although they aren't yet threatened with extinction , they may become so if trade is not strictly regulated.

This bird is a Rhea [Rhea americanus] or nandu /nandoo -a large flightless bird from South America.

Rheas are omnivorus birds [eating insects, seeds, fruits, lizards small animals] and they can reach 30kilos in weight.

Like ostriches, they are fast runners, reaching speeds of 50km/hr.

They can live in diverse habitats but they are still coming under pressure as more and more land is used for human activities.

They are also CITES listed as threatened species- they are frequently killed by farmers since they will eat crops -but they are also hunted for food and feathers.


They were quite impressive birds- and it was really interesting to see their ears and eyelashes -which looked as if the hairs were there to prevent dust and sand entering.
Ara macao, scarlet macaws, are very large parrots which used to range from eastern mexico to the Amazon forest. They are also suffereing from habitat destruction and also from being hunted to be kept as pets, however since they are considered 'common' in some parts of their range [thoyugh declining in others] they are not yet considered threatened.

They are intelligent birds and can use tools . In fact several of these birds showed this while we were there as they used the aviary structure to break the shells on nuts and seeds.

They have fabulous colourful plumage, long tails and large hooked beaks that are used to crush seeds.


Here is one sleepingMacaws are very strongly pair bonded [so faithful they stay together till death] . They spend a lot of time grooming each others feathers and snuggling together.
A macaw climbing to break seeds against the wire- they have amazing feet , quite different from the fan shape of other birds.
A white peacock and an 'ordinary' indian peacock. Unfortunatley the sun was going down when the birds decided to pose together.

The white peacocks are apparently not albinos- they are a mutation from the normal irridescent green and blue
White Pelicans Pelecanus onocrotalus were swimming freely on the large ponds and streams that ran through Parc Phoenix. They are native to southern Europe [and Asia] and present, though fairly rare, in Southern France.
I've seen them in Greece several times. , usually hanging around ports waiting for fishermen to come back and throw them scraps.

They are quite big birds

Their huge beaks are quite impressive -they use the pouch under the beak like a net to catch fish

For some reason they strongly remind me of pterodactyls -especially when flying.
Pelican fishing =- there were lots of large carp and koi in the water but i think the pelicans were fishing for smaller fish.



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