Give us a break

That heavenly few weeks between the end of one football (soccer) season and the start of the next has just about evaporated this year, or been submerged in the flood waters of a thousand tabloid headlines. So no precious month or two's respite for those who loathe kissball or simply support Middlesbrough FC (just me, then?).

If having Euro 2012 plastered all over the media wasn't enough to make you go and stand out in the garden in the pouring rain, then the trial of one John Terry, Chelsea and England stalwart, for alleged racial abuse against Anton Ferdinand, was enough to make you wonder whether walking across hot barbecue charcoal was a more pleasant option. If only the blessed rain would cease.

That the finest players in the Premier League cannot set a good example to the rest of football, in particular, and the sporting world in general is an absolute shame. Racism does not have a place anywhere, end of. For it to remain on the field of play in the national game is pathetic. For it to be present in the stands, it requires the rest of us to take a long, hard look at ourselves.

But the trial of Mr Terry in a Magistrates' Court will also be remembered for another painful fact. The level of banter between players has not really left the playground, and a particularly foul-mouthed playground at that.

I appreciate that these guys are where they are because their brains are hard-wired to their feet (and in JT's case, possibly another region of his anatomy, the tabloid press would have us believe). But surely they can rise above the cringe-makingly awful examples that were unearthed during this case?

Witty banter? Don't make me laugh.

Acid sarcasm? Give over.

If only their wits were as quick as the desire to foul, feign injury and cheat. Do you recall a football match without shirt-pulling or cynical fouls or shouted obscenities or a keenness to have the other guy sent off? Not for decades, I'd wager.

So, JT may be a gifted centre back and innocent of the charge of hurling racial abuse, but...

Is he able to deliver a humorous put-down. No, he's cack.

Can he deliver a killer one-liner? Nope, too blunt.

And there you have it, two words to describe our sporting hero... cack, blunt.

Who would have thought it?

Field notes 6

Before I launch into the seasonal "What I did on my holidays" essay, here's the gorgeous sight that greeted me on my return to Tense Towers on Sunday afternoon.

Er... let's make that the second-most gorgeous sight that greeted me on my return, after Our Lass, of course!

During the Scottish trip, I'd missed most of the Common Poppies, Papaver rhoeas, coming into flower, but there were definitely more characters on the cast list now.

Corn Cockle, Agrostemma githago

Thorow-wax, Bupleurum rotundifolium

Corn Marigold, Glebionis segetum, and friend

Just three more species to find and identify, or figure out what prevented their germination.

Prodigal sun

Hi folks! Just back from a week in north west Scotland, searching for a few of the less abundant dragonflies of these isles. The weather was just peachy. Long days of warm sunshine, with the occasional thundery shower to freshen up the air and give the landscape that sparkling glow. Glorious. What's been happening down here in jolly old England, then? Why are you all looking at me like that... ?

June in Little Linford Wood

As we reach the middle of 2012, in an unseasonally unseasonal year, the only certainty presenting itself for this visit was the apparent lack of bird life. Not that there weren't any birds, just that they were all rather busy with raising families and had plenty of undergrowth in which to lose themselves. This latter fact was immediately obvious from the usual opening shot.

The view along many of the rides was of lush vegetation encroaching upon the path, Hogweed being the most obvious plant, with its tall pinky white flower heads.

These blooms were alive with insects. Bees, hover flies, butterflies, beetles, and several species of micro moth. This is Nemophera degeerella, a species of longhorn moth.

In fact, insects were the order of the day. We noted several species of ladybird: Seven-spot, inevitably, but also Orange Ladybird, Halyzia 16-guttata, and Fourteen-spot Ladybird, Propylea 14-punctata.

The fresh Bracken shoots were amazing... fractal geometry anyone?

Whilst I investigated a woodland pond for odes, Our Lass remained on the main ride. So although I recorded a solitary Large Red Damselfly on a rush stem, she found a Broad-bodied Chaser dragonfly hunting along the vegetation at the edge of the path. Gah!

In one of the wider and sunnier rides, we spotted a yellow flower. My initial thought was some species of buttercup, but recourse to Blamey, Fitter and Fitter's Wild Flowers of Britain and Ireland, suggested that Trailing Tormentil, Potentilla anglica, was a more likely candidate.

Field notes 5

Just when I thought that I might miss the inaugural blooms, there's finally some colour in the wildflower border at Tense Towers.

Corn Chamomile, Anthemis arvensis, was the first to flower. It's daisy-like heads bobbing in the unseasonal breeze and attracting passing insects.

Meanwhile, the Cornflowers, Centaurea cyanus, weren't far behind and added their gorgeous hue to the burgeoning display.

There are a few specimens of Common Poppy on their way, but I'm still struggling to identify any of the six other species that were in the seed mix. More homework necessary.

A puzzle and a quiz

Late yesterday afternoon, we were sat out in the garden, enjoying a pint of something medicinal, when I spied an insect on a rose bush. Not having seen its like before and with my curiosity suitably piqued, I scoured Chinery's 'Insects of Britain and Western Europe' for an ID.

I couldn't find anything that matched, but given the creature's upside down orientation (yes, it was that way up, I hadn't drunk that much, thank you) and the fact that it appeared to be egg-laying, I assumed it was some sort of sawfly.

Unfortunately, though there's about 28 sawflies in the book, none were quite correct for our new guest. So I gave up and went back to my pint. This evening, however, I persevered and resorted to that fount of nearly all knowledge, Google Images.

It turns out that it was a female Large Rose Sawfly, Arge pagana, and she was slowly working her way down the stem, cutting a slit with her ovipositor as she went, into which she inserted her eggs.

Well, that was my detective work for the evening, now it's your turn...

After the sawfly episode, we'd returned indoors, but a little later, I looked out of the window and noticed something on the lawn, struggling to eat a newt.

Was it:

1. a Heron?

2. a Grass snake?

3. a Hedgehog?

4. a Magpie?

5. none of the above?

>

>

>

>

>

Predictably, the answer is going to be a bit more complicated than that, because the creature that was struggling to eat the newt wasn't the animal that finally ate it.

>

>

>

>

>

Here's the struggler...

Blackbird (Turdus merula) and Smooth Newt (Triturus vulgaris)

I don't know how the Blackbird caught the newt, whether it managed to grab it from the pond, or whether the newt left the water and was ambushed in the grass. Either way, the bird couldn't quite figure out why this fat worm had legs and spent ages trying to devour it. Eventually, all the commotion attracted the attention of another predator, a Magpie, and it consumed the unfortunate amphibian.

HESC provides swift solution to World's problems

Following another wet week and the local rivers bursting their banks in sympathy, this weekend has been largely dry so far, though blustery. Dark clouds and the occasional shower scampered across the sky, spurred on by a strong south westerly wind.

Yesterday, following an industrious morning, we decamped to Stony Stratford for lunch and a little pre-holiday shopping, to garner a few requisites for my trip to north west Scotland. Thicker fleece, waterproof trousers, that sort of thing. I must be the antipathy of the quintessential sun seeker.

By late afternoon, we were itching for some fresh air and nature, though with all the wet weather, 'itching' is probably an ill-advised term to use. Biting midges are making the most of the conditions at HESC, so I was hoping that the wind would keep them at bay, or at least offer us some respite from incessant attack.

Other insects were finding the meteorology challenging, too. It was only due to Our Lass's keen eyes that any damselflies were seen, mostly Azure but with a few Common Blues, all tucked away in the vegetation, riding out the 'storm'.

As ever, during bad weather, a Song Thrush was singing his heart out from a song post hidden by some trees. There were brief choruses of other bird song, mainly warblers, as the necessary business of defending a territory carried on, regardless of the rain.

Following a walk along a sheltered path between two hedges, which was where most of the midges were congregated, we took refuge in the Far Hide. Looking out over the main lake, there were very few waterfowl to be seen, a couple of Mute Swans, a smattering of Canada Geese, a pair of Great Crested Grebes, the odd Coot and the inevitable gaggle of Cormorants. Very little in the way of ducks or waders.

The music from a nearby festival carried into the river valley and gave a surreal feeling to proceedings, as we watched the patterns formed on the water surface by successive gusts of wind and listened to the various bands.

Whilst our quota of duckage may have been poultry paltry, this was more than compensated for by the presence of hundreds of other birds. Now, this is going to sound a bit heretical, but I think  lakes are a poor place for bird watching unless you're carrying sufficient optical power to spot a Lunar Long-tailed Duck on the Mare Tranquillitatis (Sea of Tranquility). Inevitably, wherever you are on the perimeter of a water body, most of the bird life will be out in mid-lake at best, or, more likely, tucked into the reeds diametrically opposite your current position. Yep, water is wasted on ducks.

So it was a pleasant surprise to feel in the thick of things, as hundreds of hirundines and several Swifts, hunted over the surface of the lake and the bordering vegetation. The bulk of this aerial armada was made up of House Martins and Swallows, with just a few Sand Martins to be seen amongst them. The twittering of Swallows is such a happy sound to my ears, only bettered by the gentle buzz of a contented Martin. And, boy, were they contented. The flock must've been feeding on a huge, invisible (to our eyes) cloud of insects, as the action was non-stop. Swooping, soaring, swivelling and scything, the massed ranks of blue and black cut a swathe through the air, and hopefully the midge population. I only had the camera on my phone to record this and inevitably failed miserably in the attempt.

Swallows and House Martins in action

The whole panorama of the lake was 180 degrees of fly annihilation, and as the hide was offering shelter to the reeds immediately to our front, this was where many insects were. Swifts would appear from our left, like the blur of a knife blade, cutting across the top of the vegetation and then out, low, over the water. Some would wheel on a pin point, right in front of us, as if redefining the laws of motion and physics. In fact, you could almost believe that their feeding behaviour was a solution to global warming. It felt as if their wings could slice through the bonds of a carbon dioxide molecule, releasing pure oxygen into the atmosphere and coating their feathers with carbon atoms. Perhaps they do, that's why they're black?