That's torn it!

My camera has died!. It has shown ominous signs of illness recently but today it suffered a relapse affecting the lenses and it is, to use the technical term, buggered.


Now I am no photographer, the general quality of my pictures being, by modern standards, rather mediocre, [Yeah, we'd noticed. Ed.] but they do help to brighten otherwise dull blogs. Being unable to visit a camera shop, and not happy with a mobile phone 'camera' I have gone on line and ordered a replacement. It will take three weeks to arrive via an overstretched postal system! Eh bien, c'est la vie, and all that.


I managed a few pictures before losing my old friend. The apple blossom is on the point of opening and its bright carmine-ish flower buds are almost as attractive as the blossom itself.

The apple blossom is about to break. Stefen Hill Pocket Park

10 April, 2020

Apples and hawthorn are both members of the Rose Family, Rosaceae, and it was a clump of hawthorn bushes I visited next. The leaves bore pale blister-like spots, caused by a mite, Eriophyes crataegi. It is a very common affliction and seems to do little harm to the host.

These spots, caused by mites, are very common on hawthorn.

Stefen Hill Pocket Park, Daventry. 10 April, 2020

These sunny days have brought out ladybirds by the score. The commonest species is the 7-spot Ladybird, Coccinella 7-punctata, but running it a close second is the Harlequin Ladybird, Harmonia axyridis.




Harlequin Ladybird, in the form conspicua.

 Stefen Hill Pocket Park, 10 April, 2020

This ladybird comes in a bewildering number of forms so that it is not unusual to find two apparently different species mating. The form I photographed today is known as conspicua but even within the form there is variability.

Stop Press 


Chris has had a brainwave and, after a bit of rummaging (apparently from the French, arrumage) unearthed a perfectly serviceable camera from somewhere mysterious. I will prevail!