London Daily Nature Photo

So long, been good to know ya......

Wed, 09 May 2012 18:09 +0000

...and if that's good enough for Woody it should be good enough for me.

Go well, be happy, cheers, Nic ;D

Jimmy Wren

Sun, 08 Apr 2012 15:59 +0000

Having been away for a few days we came back this morning (for our last week in London) to find Jimmy Wren building a nest in the hydrangea on the neighbour's wall that runs along one side of our patio. He's brought Jenny Wren to see it once but she hasn't been back again yet....

This doesn't look like London any more....

Thu, 29 Mar 2012 16:17 +0000

Well, I seem to have missed LDNP's fifth birthday.....never-mind it hasn't done much lately so I'm sure it will be happy enough with this selection of photos I took last week in the Bavarian Forest National Park.

I was invited on this wonderful three day trip organised by the good guys at Tatra Photography by a friend who won the trip for the two of us by way of a photo competition in the Sun for this rather wonderful photo of a very cross wasp. Cheers Ian!

Snowy LDNP Oak....again

Sun, 05 Feb 2012 11:16 +0000

What else could anyone want to see on a snowbound day? I've begun looking for an alternative tree for when we move but although there's a large green space almost as close as now, I've not yet found a suitable stand alone tree.

There was about six inches of snow overnight here in London but it's already obviously warming up so I don't think it'll last too long...

The garden is noticeably a lot fuller of birds than for the bird count last weekend, more tits, loads of Chaffinches and even a few Greenfinches.

Have you counted me yet?

Sun, 29 Jan 2012 17:54 +0000

So, it was the RSPB's Big Garden Birdwatch again this weekend and I just about managed to fit in a count, the Robin who always seems to greet me in the garden keenest to be counted. Previous years results also presented for the record....

2012
2011
2009
2008
2007
2006
2005
2004

Blackbirds
1
1
2
2
2
2
1
2

Blue tits
8
9
5
4
6
8
16?
7

Chaffinches
1
3
2
2
0
1
0
0

Collared D'Oves
0
0
0
1
2
0
1
2

Dunnock
0
0
1
1
0
0
0
0

Feral Pigeons
5
8
4
4
2
4
0
0

Goldfinches
2
2
2
0
0
0
0
0

Great Spotted Woodpecker
1
1
1
0
0
1
0
0

Great tits
5
7
6
4
4
3
7
2

Greenfinches
0
1
4
5
7
9
9
2

House Sparrows
2
1
1
0
3
1
5
8

Jays
0
0
0
2
0
0
0
0

Magpies
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
1

Robins
1
2
1
2
0
1
1
1

Starlings
0
2
2
0
2
4
0
0

Woodpigeons
1
2
1
0
0
2
0
0

So, down a bit this year but I've seen many stories of drastic declines in garden birds (put down mainly to the mild weather meaning that birds need to visit feeders less often). Sad to see we seem to have lost the Greenfinches again, and that's not just for the count, it's been a while since I've seen any in the garden. The Goldfinches are still around I'm glad to say, up to five but just two during the hour of the count. Next year we'll be doing it from my mum's....

LDNP Oak as Rorschach?

Thu, 22 Dec 2011 16:32 +0000

Taken about an hour ago (is the fastest taken to posted here, yet?), half an hour before sun set on the shortest day of the year.....

Season's greetings to all viewers, readers and commenters, may you get all you wish for or at least all that you need.
And may 2012 be a truly great year for everyone.

Cheers!

PS: APOLOGIES AGAIN TO ALL WHO COMMENTED AND SENT SEASONAL GREETINGS. All were read and appreciated but were accidentally deleted by me whilst trying to handle the ongoing avalanche of spam. Too much seasonal spirit of the wrong sort in me probably! Thanks again to all who commented, always much appreciated.

...or just the end of the beginning?

Mon, 17 Oct 2011 01:01 +0000

It appears to have been a very good year for acorns and not just on the LDNP Oak. Indeed it's been a pretty good year for lots of fruits, one of our best years ever for raspberries and blackberries even if the seasons were unusually timed.

So, maybe these acorns mark a sort of start for at least the thought of a new nature blog even though the actual departure from London is a few months off. I'm still thinking of a name but today anyway marks (finally) the commencement of building works on the annexe to my mother's house and only when that is finished will be moving to commuterworld. The challenge for the new nature blog will be less obvious, the whole point of this one was to show what wonderful nature and wildlife we had in dreary grey London (apparently London is now the world's second most visited wildlife safari destination*). I don't want to make the new one Surrey specific so I'm hoping to be able to make it a bit more of a nationwide affair....but time will tell.

Today also marks the 21st birthday of our elder daughter.....how did we get to that so soon? Happy birthday Dee!

* This may not be true.

Apologies to the eight of you whose comments were accidentally deleted ( I had read and appreciated all!) and for the fact that I've had to turn comment moderation on, both due to an ongoing Spam invasion.

The beginning of the end?

Tue, 20 Sep 2011 08:05 +0000

Hello again and thanks to all asking as to my well being. Fear not, I'm fine but have been rather busy with other things over recent months including planning for the departure from London that we had always planned for this year (when our younger daughter had finished sixth form). The destination will not be as originally planned but rather to the leafy Surrey commuter-belt town what I grew up in. Hopefully once everything is sorted there'll be room for a more widely spreading nature photo blog (which will include the LDNP archives) although sadly British Nature Photo would have an acronym I'd really rather avoid so I'm still searching for a better title...

In the meantime I'm promising nothing but maybe hopefully there will be a few photos as autumn draws us in.

I did actually start thinking of a final photo but that became much harder than my search a few years back for a first one. In the meantime here's the LDNP Oak yesterday, still green despite the chill in the air some days but absolutely laden with acorns like many fruiting plants this year. More of that tomorrow perhaps.

For those not in the know, we've looked at this tree before once or twice....a selection through the seasons and years here:

1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24 25 and 26.

Young GSW

Fri, 10 Jun 2011 13:50 +0000

Fans of US crime shows can rest assured that GSW stands for Great Spotted Woodpecker here, rather than Gun Shot Wound. We have at least three young GSWs coming to the feeder in the weeping willow at the moment, sometimes there's even a queue. Excellent to watch, always.

Bindweed eater!

Sun, 29 May 2011 13:02 +0000

Finally I've found something that eats bindweed, the plague of so many gardeners and allotmenteers. Nice wings too.

This is an adult White Plume Moth and its caterpillars apparently feed exclusively on bindweed.....I suspect we'd need a plague of them to solve the ongoing infestations at the allotment which even six years on still seem to crop up on some beds. The only other creature I've found that will eat it is Esio, our recently acquired Tortoise and he doesn't actually live at the allotment (and if he did I suspect his desire for lettuce and dandelions would mean that the bindweed barely got touched anyway).