Wild West Yorkshire nature diary, Tuesday 9th March 1999
A SMALL Tortoiseshell that didn't make it through winter hibernation. This butterfly dropped out of a bag which I'd reached down from the attic. Through a pocket microscope the scales on the wings show up like a series of impasto brush strokes on an oil painting.
At the Wakefield Naturalists Society meeting observations include the Bittern, which is still to be seen, spending the winter in the Pugneys Country Park reedbed. Toads were on the move a week or two ago, before the weather turned cooler. A crossing point on a road near Rhyhill had been a scene of carnage, but many more must be getting through as the numbers hit seem to stay the same from year to year.
It is a mild night, ss we get back from the naturalists' meeting earthworms are stretched out emerging from their burrows between the the paving slabs on the driveway.
A SMALL Tortoiseshell that didn't make it through winter hibernation. This butterfly dropped out of a bag which I'd reached down from the attic. Through a pocket microscope the scales on the wings show up like a series of impasto brush strokes on an oil painting.
At the Wakefield Naturalists Society meeting observations include the Bittern, which is still to be seen, spending the winter in the Pugneys Country Park reedbed. Toads were on the move a week or two ago, before the weather turned cooler. A crossing point on a road near Rhyhill had been a scene of carnage, but many more must be getting through as the numbers hit seem to stay the same from year to year.