Despite the lock-down I got a bit of a treat over the Easter weekend. Two years ago the excellent Martin of Martin’s moths gave me 5 emperor caterpillars. These had hatched from eggs laid in his moth trap. Martin did a very good job rearing the caterpillars and ended up with quite a few, so Read more about Easter Emperors[…]
Last week was a short week at work for me as I had the day off (and a pressing engagement) on Friday with some tropical butterflies at RHS Wisley! I was on a macro photography course with insect photographer extraordinaire Adrian Davies. The course took place in the morning where we were allowed 2 hours Read more about Photographing butterflies[…]
As the temperature dropped Elvis the caterpillar slowed down, ready for his next life stage, to change into (hopefully) an adult inside his cocoon. But first he had to make a cocoon. He stopped eating and crawled to the bottom of his container onto the soil that I’d put there for him. For the first Read more about Metamorphosis[…]
This weekend was the Butterfly Conservation Upper Thames members day at which I was scheduled to give a talk. I thought I’d be fine, I’d written my talk months ago, I had my notes & was feeling calm. That was however before I arrived at the hall and found that it was massive and that Read more about BC ing[…]
A couple of weekends ago I volunteered on the Butterfly conservation stand at BBOWTs wild wood fair. I had a great time talking to members of the public and playing games such as spot that and name that moth. My favourite bit of the day however was when I went home taking with me this Read more about Elvis is in the building[…]
This weekend heralded my first attempt at Butterfly Monitoring on the Ardley Quarry reserve. Armed with long trousers, an ID guide, my recording sheet and a Jam with a camera (who was not afraid to use it) we arrived at the reserve mid afternoon on Sunday. I will admit it took me a little while Read more about Butterfly monitoring[…]
Yesterday I headed to the NEC in Birmingham to volunteer with the fantastic Bat Conservation Trust. I was one of the volunteers manning the stall for Gardeners World Live which was a massive and very colourful event: But it wasn’t all about the pretty flowers. Over on the Bat Conservation stand we were talking about Read more about Volunteering with BCT at Gardeners World Live[…]
Last Wednesday I went to a talk organised by the Abingdon Naturalists (that’s natural history not taking your clothes off in case you were wondering). The speaker for the evening was Berkshire Moth recorder Martin Harvey & the talk entitled: Moths: what we know & what we would like to find out. During the course Read more about The moth trap cometh[…]
Saturday saw me heading to the beautiful Oxford Museum of Natural History (with added swifts in the above pic). first on the agenda was the Friends of The Earth Organized Bee Fest which saw lots of local bee stakeholders come together to share ideas on how to save the bees. After the discussions were over Read more about Beefest & Chris Packham[…]
This weekend I returned to Ardington to do another glass painting workshop with the lovely Nicola Kantorowicz. I had a very specific project in mind ever since I got involved with the Oxford Moth Project earlier this year I’ve been pretty fascinated by all the different colours and patterns of moths. While looking through my Read more about More painting on glass[…]