Insects, from a walk round Ardmore point yesterday.
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A lot of white butterflies (mostly green-veined, large & small) out & about on Friday. Some flightily red admirals too.
Later, beside the track an excited green-veined white butterfly fluttering amount the leaves. Underneath a leaf a small white hanging upside down. Misplaced affection?
Talking a short walk along the Kelvin between Kelvin Bridge & The Botanics while my wife was in the dentist. These sunlit leaves above the path pulled in this speckled wood. Another flew over some sparkling water through light & shade. A happy moment.
Given the good weather there are quite a lot of butterflies around this week. This one looks like an old one that has been in the wars, black faded and very ragged. I wonder what tales it could tell. My butterfly by month page is building nicely.
Butterfly Morning at Greenside
Short walk to Greenside reservoir this morning. Warm, mostly sunny. Lots of butterflies around.
I’d guess I saw over 200 ringlets; a lot of painted ladies & meadow browns. A few common blues & red admirals ,one small tortoiseshell & a white of some sort. A few fritillaries bright orange and zooming around, never posing. I saw one I’d never seen before. It look to me, after consulting my book & the web, like a small skipper. According to the same research this doesn’t seem to be where they are expected? Unfortunately my camera threw an error while I was trying to get a different angle.
#Flora #BloomStrolling #BloomScrolling
#SilentSunday #Bird
Today’s daily create #tdc5280 #ds106 #dailycreate #ShowYourStripes point toward the #ShowYourStripes webpage that very neatly shows
visual representations of the change in temperature as measured in each country, region or city over the past 100+ years
The site also links to #BiodiversityStripes
The ‘biodiversity stripes’ provide a visual representation of the change in biodiversity over time, often since 1970. The highest level of biodiversity is coloured bright green. Lower levels move through yellow to grey, depending upon the level of decline. Darker greys appear with greater declines.
This one shows the decline of UK moths from 1970 to 2018
86% decline in only part of my lifetime. Horrific. I was 12 in 1970, I remember when cleaning insects from a windshield was a thing.
In 2025, the now-annual survey conducted by Buglife in Kent found a decline of 66% in flying insects since 2021.
Kent bug splat survey shows ‘troubling’ fall in flying insects – BBC News
I am currently reading Aurochs and Auks by John Burnside, a wonderful book, which in part deals with the feelings around this terrible state of affairs.
#SilentSunday #Butterfly
Walk around Victoria park this afternoon. Warm and quite sunny. Lots of small damselflies out on the pond.
#SilentSunday #flora #bees
#SilentSunday
TIL copy all tabs in iOS safari. On mac, I have a nice wee AppleScript that copies to the clipboard links to all my open tabs in Safari’s top window. I’ve always been a bit frustrated that I couldn’t do the same on iOS. But I can. Tab view then the ellipsis at the top right, copy n tabs.
#SilentSunday
Likes Pixabots
I made a tiny pixel character creator called Pixabots. It generates 10,752 unique combinations from four categories — eyes, heads, bodies, and tops — all bouncing on a little idle loop.
This pack is a curated 2,000 of them, ready to use. Free.
Not sure where I saw this, there is a live editor at Pixabots — Pixel Character Avatars which is fun. Could be useful in class I think. Perhaps in Scratch when an uploaded gif is turned into a sprite with a costume for each frame.
Walk round Ardinning this afternoon. Cuckoos calling. Willow warblers & ravens heard. Corn bunting & stonechats seen & heard. Warm & breezy plenty of butterflies, mostly Orange Tips & Green-Veined whites, a Painted Lady. A few small red damselflies didn’t stay still although one landed on D’s hat.
#SilentSunday
I had a walk around Ardmore yesterday afternoon. Lots of flower out. #BloomScrolling #BloomStrolling #Flora
Went for a walk round the park this afternoon. Hailstones in May!
In reply to #tdc5229 #ds106 #dailycreate Last minute food panic.
I pride myself on tofu, veg with rice or noodles in 15 minutes.
The hawthorn is starting to come out in the park.
Victoria Park this afternoon sunny and very warm. In a sheltered spot near fossil grove we watched 2 Speckled Woods spiral, jousting up and around for quite a while. A Red Admiral and a coupe of orange tip butterflies around too.
Ardinning this afternoon. Very sunny & bright. A few butterflies, mostly peacocks & some orange tips. A couple of peacocks spiralled up high. Cuckoos calling. At the bench beside the loch we heard a big splash. Looking round through the bushes we saw an osprey come out of the water & fly off.
Short walk on the Kilpatrick Braes this afternoon. Warmest day of the year so far. Quite a few butterflies, peacocks and Orange Tips around. Lots of wee flowers. The usual suspects singing in the trees, a grouse & stonechat on the moor. Larks singing. #bloomscrolling #bloomstrolling
Took the short walk to Greenside reservoir this morning. Lots of spring happening, bird song, especially chiffchaff & willow warbler. Heard blackcaps (confirmed with merlin) and finally saw some. A cuckoo calling, the first this year. A few butterflies around including one small tortoiseshell.
Walk in the rain round the short Kilpatrick loop this morning. Lots of birds singing mostly out of sight. Tree pipets in good voice, & displaying in the trees at the edge of the moor. Blackthorn fully out, trees starting to bud. Flowers hanging their heads in the drizzle.
A haze of blackthorn in the Drizzle.
#SilentSunday
Kilpatrick Braes, the blackthorn here still in bud, later than others places I’ve been recently. Warm & sunny with a bit of a breeze. Few bumble bees out exploring the ground. Several butterflies, probably peacocks, rushed by. Lots of birds singing. Heard a green woodpecker a few times. Chiffchaffs mostly heard but saw a couple. More primroses opening, some mouse-ear cress. Larch starting to green & buds on a chestnut at the edge of the heather.