What's outside

I guess the name comes from it looking like a robins breast. It is another gall, i believe that the gall fly lays it’s egg on the plant and the larva chewing at the plant somehow corrupts the DNA so a growth that suits the larva forms around it forming protection and lots of succulent material inside for food. Previous posts show just a few of the many and varied forms these take, hence my continual interest in evolution (esblygiad) .

Horray a sunny day.


Gwas neidr y de gwrywaidd - Southern hawker male. Still the dragon flies appearing on a sunny day.

Their eyes really are a marvel to me. (click on image for full size).

Cap tyllog bwytadwy - Cep neu penny bun.

yr lindys o bidog llwyd - the caterpillar of grey dagger. (happy eating on it’s selection of leaves).

Cheers J.P.

6 Likes

Eog yn yr Afon Tweed.

4 Likes

@ramblingjohn and @dougewart, I’ve added your new entries into my list. I will try and keep this going.

1 Like

I watched this last night - it was fascinating! Waiting for hours and hours in a hide for a minute of footage - the patience of the photographers is truly impressive. Now I wish I could see the series itself.

That was a LOT of work to pull out all that nature vocabulary, Craig! Da iawn ti!

1 Like

[quote=“dougewart, post:642, topic:971, full:true”]
Eog yn yr Afon Tweed[/quote]
Oh, yum! :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:

Diolch yn fawr. Yes it was, whew. :slight_smile:

1 Like

Well, @ramblingjohn I just hope you found them more and you have eaten them for lunch or you’d maybe want to have them for dinner mixed with eggs. Highly praised and for many the only REAL mushroom in Slovenia.

Craig, you are certainly doing a great job with the list, (it may get a bit long): :smiley:

Tatjana, i don’t eat them but i do know they are highly prized across Europe and beyond.

Cheers J.P.

1 Like

Well the conversation turned a little in the direction of fish, which i know very little about, luck was on my side again walking along side the canal when a fisherman started to look a bit proud of what he was reeling in.

Craenogyn dwr croyw - Perch (so i was told, then it was returned to the water).

As so often happens, i was wandering looking for caterpillars and found none, but it was interesting.

Cheers J.P.

4 Likes

Well, you will ask questions. and i will go in search of answers. (as i know very little about fish this was certainly interesting).

Looking at the Latin name makes the picture simple: Salmo trutta. Sea trout / brown trout are the same species Genetically (Sewin is one of the welsh names for them).

Sea trout are brown trout that went to sea, they go through physiological changes to cope with salt water, so return silver rather than brown and tend to be larger due to better feeding opportunities.

There are many different names for their various forms around Britain and Ireland, that is the big ones and the little ones and depending on which direction they are going upriver/downriver (oh yes that leads to a lot of confusion especially as there are in-between looking specimens).

So take my comments as from a simple observer not an expert, these searches always throw up interesting questions (interesting to me).

It seems plausible that there is a fertilization advantage in rivers. too an extent the female can choose a mate, and the eggs are not exactly spillt into the ocean for random fertilization, but laid in a hollow which the male can then attend.
So are these evolving freshwater fish that are taking to the ocean for food advantage.
Or are these ocean fish that have taken to use rivers for spawning in a more controllable environment.
Or am i over thinking this,

Cheers J.P.

2 Likes

I hope so. The Internet could use a good list of Welsh nature vocab. :smile:

1 Like

I applaud the start of constructing a list of wildlife in Welsh. I have always found it interesting but my vocabulary came originally from the titles of Welsh tunes which always seem to be named in Welsh even in England. However that limits me to ysgyfarnog, dryw, grug, onn, etc! Seed catalogues have given me a range of edible plants and the list slowly grows from there but nowhere have I found a reliable list to refer to.

I’d like to make a suggestion. This list of words will quickly become very long as there does seem to be a need for it. Do you think it could be organised into categories that most people would recognise? Eg for the plants we could have separate sections for trees, other woody plants, flowering non-woody plants and non-flowering, non-woody plants. That would avoid searching the whole list each time whilst not requiring the sort of botanical knowledge an enthusiast would have.

I find pioden y mor interesting in the way of many Welsh names (and traditional English names) which are descriptions and presumably this one refers to the black and white colouring of the magpie.

I think you are thinking it really, really well!!! I hadn’t considered it from the sea to land viewpoint, but considering where all life began. I should have!! Eels go to sea to grow up too, don’t they? So we have lots of sea creatures breeding in fresh water and we all began in the sea… I’d guess it was the “went up a river by mistake and found it safer/more convenient for breeding” answer!!

1 Like

Yes, once the list for plants gets larger. I have already made sub categories for animals. I will do so for plants but have not yet figured out which categories to use. The first break out will probably be Fungi as those names even in English would not be familiar to me.

That sounds good. Fungi would come into the ‘non-flowering, non-woody’ category along with algae, liverworts, mosses, and ferns, all of which are abundant in Wales. Are you thinking of putting an illustration with each?

Do you think a non-living category may also be appropriate? Some of the spectacular views of Wales are of bare rock and there may well be an enthusiastic geologist (or two?) on this forum to help out with the rocks.

I suspect that this is an idea many, many people will make use of and, hopefully, contribute to.

1 Like

I’ve thought about this. If I find the time, I may try to link to pics that were posted in the thread as most of the entries will come from these posts.

That is certainly a possibility. If anyone posts such info on this thread, I can certainly add it.

1 Like

Two pictures showing sewin (sea trout, top) and brithyll (brown trout, bottom) Bwytais i yr sewin! Nofiodd yr brythyll bant. There are many names for the different stages in the development of salmon (eogiaid) and trout, but probably too many to mention here and they may differ in other areas. Some, such as “orange fin” and “black tail” are two names for juvenile salmon which I like as they are easy to identify. Any help with the Welsh bits would be appreciated.

3 Likes

Brilliant, now we have someone who knows about fish, thanks very much.

Get the camera clicking Ray, we are low on edibles.

This is great Craig, but our biggest problem is going to be time .
Don’t anyone misunderstand i’m keen on anything outside being posted.
For now i think i will concentrate on animals, birds and insects along with the incidentals that i come across. If others who know more within other categories can post examples that will be great.

Cheers J.P.

Indeed, everyone just keep doing what they’re doing. I will try and keep up. lol

Glesyn y celyn - Holly blue (at last i got a photo without reflection of the wing scales so the markings are clear).

Gwas neidr y de benywaidd - Southern hawker female.
(here i come upon a slight problem/curio in that this species name differs in my new book from that in Iolo’s book, (the image includes name from Llyfr natur)). maybe it had two names but for now dwi ddim yn siwr.

Cheers J.P.

6 Likes