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Sheffields Flora and Fauna


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Nope - I just did it LIKE - WOW - like you suggested MAN.

The video confirms that I got it right. - phew !

LIKE, WOW, MAN, - looks like you are in for bumper crop of tomatoes.

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We had a very good number of Humble Bees, Solitary Bees etc. earlier on this year (which is encouraging) but very few Honey Bees.

However, over the past few days, there have appeared an inordinate number of Hover Flies. Far more than usual.

Humble Bee - Bumble Bee

By the way, I like to call them by their old name. Don't know why, it just seems a nice thing to do.

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Whatever happened to the humblebee, the old name for the bumblebee.

When Darwin, or indeed any of his contemporaries, wrote of the animated bundles of fluff, he would have called them humblebees. But they weren't humble in the sense of lowly beings doing the drudge work of nectar and pollen collecting; rather they would have been celebrated for the powerful evolutionary interaction with the flowers they had visited for millions of years. Darwin would have called them humblebees because, as they fly, they hum. Simple.

The etymological change of entomological names occurred gradually and imperceptibly, but some key events can be pin-pointed. The first great 20th-century book on bees was by Frederick Sladen, and his 1912 opus on their life history was firmly in the "humble" camp. By then, bumble, which had always been knocking around in the background as a second-rate alternative, had started to gain some ground. In Beatrix Potter's Tale of Mrs Tittlemouse (1910), the eponymous heroine is troubled by squatters making mossy nests in her back yard. Chief troublemaker is one Babbitty Bumble.

It is, perhaps, at about this time that the myth of the bumblebee's scientifically impossible flight came into play. As aeronautics took off between the wars, along with faster and sleeker planes, the clumsy-looking furry bee with its pitifully small wings and tubby body was the perfect match for its new, slightly belittling name, as it bumbled from droopy bloom to droopy bloom. By the time of the next bee monograph, by John Free and Colin Butler (1959), the humblebee had gone for ever

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We had a very good number of Humble Bees, Solitary Bees etc. earlier on this year (which is encouraging) but very few Honey Bees.

However, over the past few days, there have appeared an inordinate number of Hover Flies. Far more than usual.

Similar experience here both in the garden and down on the wifes allotment.

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Fruit & Flora

By Sheffield artist Les Cornthwaite

Accurate depictions of historic Sheffield views,

Accurate pictures of well known local traction engines and their owners

...and now accurate botanically correct pictures of flowers, plants and fruits in a still life scene.

Les really is a very talented artist isn't he.

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Lets hope you get to the bottom of it UKL,

link .. Hedgehog scats

Going back to this one, I still get lots of the hedgehog poo but I saw some plastic croaking frogs in the poundshop

that I thought might cure the problem.

I don't want to harm the hedgehog so I have put the croaking frog near where it always deposits [ now there's a new one]

and every time something goes near it , it loudly croaks. The frog I mean , not the hedgehoge :)

Hopefully it will scare it off .....perhaps to poo on another part of the lawn. :(

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Suffering from a sore throat ?

Forget about the Fisherman's Friends and try chewing on a Jew's Ear

published 1810

OK it looks like an ear or a bit of wild fungus.

But I bet it tastes better than a Fishermans Friend.

Most things taste better than a Fishermans Friend.

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I noticed this punk rocker caterpillar crawling about on the pavement today,

took it home for a photo shoot and then released it into my garden.

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I noticed this punk rocker caterpillar crawling about on the pavement today,

took it home for a photo shoot and then released it into my garden.

As a catterpillar eventually undergoes metamorphosis into an adult insect have we any idea what it is?

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It's almost certainly a Pale Tussock Moth.

Unmistakable, up to 45mm, bright green or yellow, 4 dense white tufts like tiny shaving brushes on its back. Slimmer tuft of red hairs at the back. Feeds on a wide range of deciduous trees and also hops (I think they mean it eats them, not the way it moves!) Found in most of central and northern Europe, (but not Scotland apparently!)

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It's almost certainly a Pale Tussock Moth.

Unmistakable, up to 45mm, bright green or yellow, 4 dense white tufts like tiny shaving brushes on its back. Slimmer tuft of red hairs at the back. Feeds on a wide range of deciduous trees and also hops (I think they mean it eats them, not the way it moves!) Found in most of central and northern Europe, (but not Scotland apparently!)

Thanks for the identification Bayleaf.

It has been very hot for late September / early October this year and both plants and animals, including insects, have been fooled into thinking it is summer again.

With the weather forecast set to change this week, with a daytime temperature drop of around 10 degrees and the possibility of night time frosts before the end of this month, or even snow if you believe some forecasts, is it likely that this caterpillar will actually survive through it's pupa stage and ever become a moth?

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Pale Tussock Moth caterpillars are active from June to October, so it is not unusual to see one now. Pupation occurs over winter, so I would think there is as good a chance as usual that this caterpillar might make it to the adult stage. This caterpillar's parents survived through last winter as pupae, so they must be hardy.

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Pale Tussock Moth caterpillars are active from June to October, so it is not unusual to see one now. Pupation occurs over winter, so I would think there is as good a chance as usual that this caterpillar might make it to the adult stage. This caterpillar's parents survived through last winter as pupae, so they must be hardy.

Steve could have kept it in his house and nurtured it on to the adult stage before releasing it next spring.

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How artistic is this you might think. This was once a mighty healthy pine tree.

It was spotted in a local park. If you had wanted to do this to a large tree that was

blocking your view I don't think the council would have allowed it so why have they let

it happen to this tree?

OK the park and the road would be full of pine cones but the kids used to like collecting

them. Maybe they were frightened of someone getting injured if the cones dropped on

their heads. I hope new shoots start sprouting next year.

Maybe I should have strapped myself to the top of the tree [ as they do ] never to come

down again.

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Maybe I should have strapped myself to the top of the tree [ as they do ] never to come

down again.

Like a fairy on the top of a Christmas tree :o

Except that they do come down again, - on 12th night :(

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Peregrine Falcons have recently been seen in and around Town, anybody spotted one yet ?

www.shef.ac.uk/mediacentre/2010

<object width="640" height="480"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nd4I3GlBBas?version=3&amp;hl=en_GB"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nd4I3GlBBas?version=3&amp;hl=en_GB" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="640" height="480" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true"></embed></object>

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There's been a pair of some kind of hawk nesting on top of the Social Services buiding at the bottom of Norfolk street for quite a while, Kestrels or Peregrines? The city centre pigeons must be an attractive take-away.

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Saw a newcomer to the bird table today, never seen one before. Looked it up and it was a goldcrest, apparently common in woodland but a rare visitor to gardens and birdtables, only in hard winters, which may account for it!

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How artistic is this you might think. This was once a mighty healthy pine tree. It was spotted in a local park. If you had wanted to do this to a large tree that was blocking your view I don't think the council would have allowed it so why have they let it happen to this tree? OK the park and the road would be full of pine cones but the kids used to like collecting them. Maybe they were frightened of someone getting injured if the cones dropped on their heads. I hope new shoots start sprouting next year. Maybe I should have strapped myself to the top of the tree [ as they do ] never to come down again.

It seems that the stated reason for felling this tree (in Coronation Park, Oughtibridge) was the costly damage the roots were doing to the drainage from the toilet block (which I'm guessing is the brick building in the picture).

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