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[…]
I used to refuse to carry a mobile phone as the thought of being contactable 24/7 was not a pleasant thought. However upon taking my phone out walking I discovered what a bonus carrying a small, easily adjustable camera was & if I hadn’t had that in my pocket I would have missed…
This year for Christmas we were lucky enough to go and visit James dad, step mum and their two little dogs who live near a town called Fougere in France. We took the car across by Ferry a couple of days before Christmas so when we arrived everyone was really getting into the Christmas spirit. Read more about En Francais[…]
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[…]
Every so often a project comes along that is a bit more challenging that you expect, and so it was with this Black arches panel. From the start of designing the panel I had a very clear idea of how I wanted it to look but getting it to look like that was a different Read more about Black Arches panel[…]
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[…]
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[…]
I was so excited when I sent my moth wings to be fired, after working through the design I was really pleased with the painted wings. I just had enough time to do a small suncatcher (below) to use up my paint & then it was time to say goodbye to my pieces as they Read more about Back from the Kiln – not quite right[…]
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[…]
I don’t tend to write much about work on here, mostly because this is an out of work blog and so filled with out of work things, but this evening’s activity is too good not to share. I work as an environment coordinator and the best bit about that role is organising events to get Read more about Insects at home and abroad at Oxford Natural History Museum[…]