The Life Cycle of a Wood Pigeon?!

 At the bottom of the garden, there is a wisteria-laden archway (marked) leading to the kitchen garden ...

Photo 1: Wisteria Arch marking the entrance to the Kitchen Garden

For a few weeks I have heard a gentle cooing coming from the wisteria with the occasional rapid exit of a wood pigeon when passing through the archway leading to the Kitchen Garden. A pair of wood pigeons had tried, unsuccessfully, to nest in our winter-flowering cherry last year. This year they paid regular visits to the flowering cherry tree but only (with hindsight) to collect twigs to build their very rudimentary nest in the wisteria.

On exiting the kitchen garden today (22nd July), I noticed a motionless wood pigeon sitting on a nest no more than a foot above my head.

Photo 2: Wood Pigeon Nesting in the Wisteria

Photo 3: Wood Pigeon on its Nest

The pigeon remained motionless hoping I wouldn't spot it. I assume the fact that it did not immediately fly off meant that there were eggs in the nest.

While new life is in the offing at home, the short video below reports the untimely death of another wood pigeon at the claws of a sparrowhawk. This was recorded in Hereford by my son, and only about a mile or so from us.

Video 1: Death by Sparrowhawk

Pigeons are slow and, outwardly, rather stupid so are easy meat for predators like the sparrowhawk and peregrine falcon. As one pigeon leaves this world, possibly several new ones enter!

Common Brimstone Butterfly

 A couple of days ago, I mentioned an unexpected garden visitor in the form of the common brimstone butterfly. Whilst not an uncommon butterfly, especially in the south and east of England (Figure 1), its preferred habitat is scrubby grassland and woodland including roadside verges and hedgerows.

Figure 1: Brimstone Distribution in the UK (h/t Butterfly Conservation)

Well, I object to our garden being described as scrubby grassland!! Hence our surprise and delight in seeing this rare visitor enjoying our garden. In the past, we have observed brimstones at Common Hill (scrubby grassland) and the nearby Lea & Paget's Wood (woodland). In our experience, brimstone sightings are often on the wing and some distance away but their identity is given away by the distinctive yellow colour.

Our recent garden visitor was still rather flighty but at least it was possible to get reasonably close. Here are a couple of short videos recorded on the 19/7/24 in the kitchen garden.

Video 1: Common Brimstone in a Hereford Garden (19/7/24)

Video 2: Common Brimstone in a Hereford Garden (19/7/24)

For more information on the brimstone butterfly, see here, here, here, and here.

Big Butterfly Count 2024

This important Citizen Science project started on the 12th July and finishes on the 4th August. Further details can be found on the Butterfly Conservation website. From conversations with people in different parts of the UK, butterfly sightings have been very low this year. We have seen remarkably few in the garden; even the cabbage whites have been largely absent. It is imperative, therefore, that citizen scientists submit as many reports as possible to the 2024 Big Butterfly Count so we can understand what is happening. I suggest that, no matter where you are, if you spot an identifiable butterfly then please spend the next 15 minutes counting how many you see and what type. Report your findings on-line, here.

I took this photo of a common brimstone butterfly yesterday (17/7/24) in our garden ...

Photo 1: Common Brimstone in Our Back Garden

... though you might have some difficulty spotting it. Fortunately, it was the male butterfly with its distinctive butter yellow colour (possibly the reason for the butterfly name).

Photo 2: Enlarged Close-up of the Common Brimstone (extracted from Photo 1)

This is quite an unusual sighting both for our garden and for this time of the year (Figure 1)

Figure 1: Common Brimstone Lifecycle (h/t Butterfly Conservation)

Today (18/7/24) we visited Arthur's Stone (more on that in another blog) and, afterwards, walked on to Merbach Hill and Common. Mary was keen to see the harebells that had been plentiful on a previous visit in 2021. We were largely disappointed on that front with just these two specimens on show.

Photo 3: Harebells on Merbach Common/Hill (July 2024)

Fortunately, from a butterfly point of view there were a number of meadow brown and marbled white butterflies displaying their flying prowess. No photographs as the butterflies refused to stay still for long enough!

Felicitaciones a España

 

Photo 1: Belle Ignores the Football on TV

Congratulations to Spain on winning Euro 2024, beating England in tonight's Final. Spain were the better team on the night and, indeed, the best team in the whole tournament.

Fruit/Vegetable Anomalies #5 Courgettes

 

Photo 1: Keeping strange company

Courgettes (aka zucchinis) are the subject of this post. Garlic, potatoes, carrots, and strawberries have featured in previous articles.

In Photo 1, we have a double (or twin) courgette. A clearer picture is shown in Photo 2 along with some fellow courgette oddities ...

Photo 2: Courgette Anomalies

I'm not sure why we get conjoined courgettes - they are not common but not rare either especially in the courgette and squash family. It could be a double ovary (most plants only have one) or a single ovary that has split. You do see this type of phenomenon (Inosculation) in trees where two trunks meld together.

The other oddity displayed in Photo 2, the formation of a snout at the flower end, is far more common among courgettes. It is said to be due to incomplete fertilization and is particularly prevalent at the beginning of the cropping season. This could be down to a general shortage of pollinators (bees and bumblebees) or just a periodic shortage due to inclement weather (cool and/or wet). If you cut open one of these oddities, you will find the 'snout' does not contain seeds whereas the 'normal' part of the courgette does.

These strange-looking vegetables are perfectly edible though I usually discard the snout as this tends to go brown (off) quite quickly.

Alma Mater - Norwich and UEA - Postscript

 In what I assume is fairly normal behaviour, revisiting our alma mater prompted me to look up the names of some contemporaneous students using Google and LinkedIn. I found my first-year room-mate at UEA, Alan, who I haven't seen for 50 years and who now lives in the USA. Alan reminded me of a prank we played in our second year at University: the Big Froth.

Photo 1: The Square, UEA

The Square at UEA was a small amphitheatre with a pond and waterfall (Photo 1). It was a popular meeting spot when the weather was good. On our recent return visit to UEA, we noted The Square was still there but the water feature had gone.

Four Chemistry undergraduates (Alan, John, Barry and myself), like good scientists, did some research and experiments to come up with the right formula of water softener, detergent and colouring (potassium permanganate) - all purchased locally. Anyone who has lived in Norwich will know the water is very hard - hence the need for water softener.

The end result ...

Photo 2: The Big Froth

We forgot to take our own pictures - quite possibly we didn't have cameras in 1973. These black and white photographs don't really do it justice nor do they record the pink colour of the froth.

You can read and hear Alan's account, with a little more detail, here and here.

Fruit/Vegetable Anomalies #4 Garlic

 Another addition to the wonky vegetable series. See here, here and here for previous instalments.

This time it is a recently harvested garlic plant. This year's main garlic crop (Early Purple Wight) was planted out in March after pre-spouting in an unheated greenhouse during February. The crop was lifted towards the end of June. Unfortunately, more than half the harvested bulbs suffered a fungal attack leaving our crop severely depleted.

One particular plant had developed an extra bulge just above the main bulb (Photo 1) ...

Photo 1: Malformed Garlic?

... which turned out to be bulbils, a vegetative means of reproduction that are clones of the original plant.

Photo 2: Garlic Bulb and Bulbils

Softneck garlic (e.g. Early Purple Wight) are prone to producing bulbils. It may be indicative of a stressed plant. It is standard practice to remove any above-ground bulge at the earliest opportunity so that the garlic plant can put all its energy into the below-ground bulb. I obviously missed this one. Bulbils are perfectly edible (milder garlic flavour) or you can save them for planting out the following season.

Fortunately, Mary rescued some older garlic bulbs (possibly up to 4 years old) that had been planted with the roses to deter aphids. This crop (Photo 3) has been processed and frozen for future use ...

Photo 3: Up to Four Year Old Garlic?

... and the rose bed replanted with fresh garlic.