Yesterday I published some pictures of Common Darter and mentioned a similar species, the Ruddy Darter, so I thought today I would publish some pictures of that species for comparison.
Archive for August, 2019
The Common Darter is one of our commonest Dragonflies and can be easily seen as it has the habit on warm days of resting on fences and on pathways, where it can take up the heat.
It has a mixture of Red and Yellow on the abdomen and this distinguishes it from the similar Ruddy Darter which has a darker red body with no yellow. It is found across most of the UK and flies between June and September, although it has been recorded in all months except January to April.
Statues and Monuments: The Cavalry Memorial
Posted: August 21, 2019 in HistoryTags: Cavalry Memorial, statues and memorials in London
A bronze sculpture of St George defeating the dragon in Hyde Park. It commemorates members of the Cavalry regiments killed in WW1.
British Butterflies: Small Tortoiseshell
Posted: August 20, 2019 in Announcements, Butterflies and Moths, Natural HistoryTags: Small Tortoiseshell
The Small Tortoiseshell is one of the UK’s commonest garden butterflies. It may hibernate over winter and so is one of the species that can be seen on warm days throughout the year.
It is found across a wide geographic area stretching from Western Europe to China and Japan. There are even a few records from New York but this may have been deliberately released there.
One stunning bird. Resident of the USA.
Jersey Tiger
Posted: August 16, 2019 in Butterflies and Moths, Natural HistoryTags: Jersey Tiger Moth
Jersey Tiger
Photo by Nick Ford ( https://www.flickr.com/photos/nickpix2008/ )
I haven’t managed to get a photo yet but we have had a couple of Jersey Tiger Moths around the house for the past couple of days. This attractive moth shows its striking black and white barring when at rest and a brilliant burst of orange when it flies, which it often does during the day.
Photo by Ben Sale ( https://www.flickr.com/photos/33398884@N03/ )
As its name suggests it was until recently only found on the Channel Islands and in South Devon, but it has rapidly expanded its range over recent years and is now found across Southern England.
It took 24 hours longer than anticipated but we got our internet connection. Today the engineer located a break in a cable which had totally killed our system. All fixed now.
So we have a new router and are now waiting for the connection tomorrow and then hopefully normal service will be restored.
The last 5 weeks have been quite a eye-opener as far as how much we use the internet. If you had asked me before I would have said we were light users – email, this blog, some video watching but nothing with any great impact. But once it isn’t there you suddenly realise how much you do use it.: looking up train times, the weather, checking what’s on TV or checking the answers to questions etc etc…. It has been astonishing how many times we have gone to do something and ‘oh no we cant do that, there’s no WiFi!’
Still as they say tomorrow is a new day………Hopefully!
So the internet stayed connected for 3 days this time! But now its down again.
A lady from the ISP phoned me yesterday on my mobile (our landline isn’t working as its on the same supplier) to ask why we were changing. I told her we had 5 days service in the last 5 weeks and that was very slow. She said she was very sorry to hear that and asked had I reported it. I said I had but had no response from the ISP. She was sorry for that too! When I asked her about the problems and whether our money was going to be refunded for lack of service, she told me that wasn’t her department she only dealt with cancellations. I refrained from saying she must be very busy at present!
Checked ISP site – no problems reported. Checked independent monitoring sites nationwide complaints about lack of service!
Roll on the 14th when hopefully normal service will be resumed with new ISP.
