Chucky's Nature Notes

Well there are a few creepy crawlies of various types out there at the moment. So here I have some pictures to share again - The first is this very funky looking bright orange spider. I do not have an ID for this one yet, but I think it is just a very pretty coloured garden spider. They seem to be trying to fatten up ready for the winter at the moment - mummy is always complaining that there are webs everywhere! I love the orange on this one - it is close to being as pretty as my yellow crest! And there was also this guy - very long and thin. This one looks really creepy compared to the fat bodied orange one. This one was hiding under the nettle leaves so isn't making such a large web where mummy can walk through it hehe.  Under the same nettles were also this little beetle - again no idea what it is, but it had little yellow triangles on the wingsheilds. They all want to be more like me :) And then there were these little caterpillars too! These are moth ...

Oh, the leaves are really starting to get Autumnal now - even though the weather has just warmed up again! The nights are drawing in and the temperatures had started to feel a little more like Autumn, so mummy bought an indoor hutch for little old man piggy, so he doesn't have to struggle to keep warm over winter (he has lost around 100g in the last three months, so is looking quite thin). However, tonight you would think it was the middle of summer if it hadn't got dark quite so quickly. And if it wasn't for the lovely leaves the are everywhere. Now these leaves really rattle in the wind as they are mostly dried out now, hence the lovely golden colour (especially against the blue sky). I love listening to these leaves rustle in the wind...then again I love the rustle of normal leaves in the wind too! I am not sure why mummy thought they looked better on the floor though! AND she wouldn't let me play with them - she said the seagulls might have something that ...

 Well September has been and gone, and my bedtime is coming earlier and earlier! It gets dark so quickly, and mummy is having to wake me up in a morning now, whereas a few weeks ago I was up way before her and playing with my toys! Also, my air purifier has gone and popped on us, so it is ever so quiet in the room at the moment. GavGav has ordered me a new one though. So the last of the wildness for September - some plants still in bloom/just coming into flower:  Mummy made a face out of conkers - I told her it was not a very obvious face - she should have used a leaf of some sort for the mouth - but she just doesn't listen!  The colours of autumn - I love the reds against the green. I do like yellows too, as they match my crest - yellow is a very good colour!  And finally the blueberry bushes have turned a bluey-purple colour now that the nights are closing in. They are absolutely stunning! They would look really lovely next to my white pluma...

Mummy has gone to visit her parents so I can now get to the computer to type up my blog. She has been hogging it! So recently we had a very lovely sunset that we got a photograph of from Gav's work carpark: We also have some lovely autumn colour on the balcony now too: AND we had this little guy playing on the lavender - he is a sheild bug, and we cannot figure out why he has come all the way up here as there are certainly no friends round here! We have some lovely flowers at the moment (yup the sweet peas are a little late at the moment), so mummy took some cuttings for in the living room: The sunflower has also finally flowered!!! It is a very sall flower on a very tall stalk, but there are a couple more buds on there yet! This does mean I might get the seed head from it, whoop! And today mummy did get some lovely pictures of a seagull and some starlings out in Blackpool - no she didn't take me with her! I have been abandoned :( It i...

We have been over by the duck pond again, and this time we were looking at the flora instead of the fauna. We want to try and bring you something different, but wild, for each day, and today we have some ivy flowers for you. These are sitting quite low as the ivy is growing over a tall tree and draping nicely. The flowers have such great structure: It is so geometric and masculine compared to the normal frills and bright colours of flowers! Obviously this is just the buds and they will open out into little flowers that can then be polinated, but they provide such great structure through Autumn. Another very Autumnal fruit, yup instead of flower this time, is fungi. These caps are the fruiting body, which allow the fungal spores to collonate further afield and intermingle, in the same way that pollen works for flowers. You do not usually see much from fungi until the high humidity of Autumn llows them to fruit, and this is how we imagine them to look all the time! There are so man...

Well it has certainly gotten cold now. Mummy is starting to look for an indoor hutch for Piggy, as he is getting old and mummy doesn't think he will be able to cope with the extremes of temperature. However, she hasn't done a good job of finding one so far - I don't think she is commited enough yet! If he had made friends with Henry he could have had a body to cuddle with to keep warm in my opinion. Anyway, yesterday mummy was nearly late for work due to trying to photograph another micro-moth inside the house, this time in the kitchen. We are not sure if this is the same species as the previous one, or a different species from the same family. And today there was lots to see out by the duck pond - besides all the greedy ducks that is lol. Firstly there was ratty: Poor little guy is terrified of the ducks, as they are likely to just stand on him without even realising he was there! Then we noticed that one of the very tall trees that we always stand und...

Well yesterday was rather awful as we got a storm hit, and the wind and rain didn't stop. However the blue tits were still coming into the garden (not when mummy was around of course, they have gotten very good at hiding from her) and they do amuse the little birdies. Florance especially likes to sit in the corner of her cage watching them. The crows do still come in occasionally too, although they are getting much more independant now. The wild thing that we wanted to note from yesterday was this flower that is growing next to Doris's run, and it is about to flower. It has sticky leaves too! We have tried to ID this plant, but no luck as yet, so any help appreciated! I wish mummy had taken me out in the car with her this morning. She saw a family of Magpies playing around on the rooftops this morning. Initially it looked like the typical corvid terretorial spat, but then they started sliding on the roof and then flying back up to throw the next one down the roof. There w...