I’m really enjoying these pictures. Our Siglennod Fraith are still very camera shy & although are nesting somewhere around the house, I have not spotted where yet. I just keep seeing them with beaks full of food.
Diolch yn fawr @pippapritchard. These are some of my favourite birds but having the nest so close has its disadvantages - I nearly dropped a camera into the washing-up bowl. I obviously can’t do more than one thing at a time.
dydd iawn heddiw - good day today.
Y ganrhi goch - common centaury.
Ddau chwilen hirgorn ddu y melyn - Two black and yellow longhorn beetles.
o dan adain mantell garpiog - under wing of comma.
Lindys o Teiger y benfelen - caterpillar of cinnabar.
Chwilen goesdew - swollen thighed beetle. (click on images for full size)
Cheers J.P.
Found this little chap on the floor this morning. Seemed much too young to be out on his own & he didn’t look too happy about the prospect either. Gone when I checked on him an hour or so later.
Swallow - Gwennol
Had a very brief but much appreciated encounter with a llwynog this afternoon. He was soon off.
i hope the person from picture 2 didn’t meet the little one from picture 1!
Keep up the great posts folks, i’m struggling to find anything equally interesting.
Heddiw - today.
Cwlwm y cthraul - field bindweed.
Gweirloyn y glaw - Ringlet.
Cheers J.P.
I think the llwynog was the least of his worries. Last week there was a commotion on the roof - a grey squirrel had scaled the stone wall & was attacking a martin’s nest. I yelled & it fell to the ground.
In better news, ar ein to ni heddiw - on our roof today:
Cnocell Werdd Ifanc - Young Green Woodpecker
Are there fireflies in Wales? I’m looking for the Welsh term for the little guys and can’t find it.
I’m not sure if we have them, but we do have a word according to Ap Geiriaduron:
Pryfed tân
pryfed tân . would be a direct translation. (i have only seen them in Canada).
as a side note we have glow worms (tan bach diniwed) which i have failed to photograph so far this year,
Edit. Pippa posted while i was typing, da iawn.
Cheers J.P.
For our US members, I just thought we should make clear that our glow worms are not worms. I assume they are innocent as well as having a small fire, but I believe they are a kind of beetle. I thought only the females glowed and flashed brightly to signal a desire for a mate, but according to what I have just read, the males and larvae do glow faintly!
I was so excited to see the Delor y Cnau - Nuthatch - at the feeder this morning I didn’t notice, until moving the pictures to my iPad that the shot had been photobombed by a Titw Mawr ifanc - young Great Tit.
Thank you SO much! I was hoping to tell my class about the fireflies I’ve had this year in my backyard, but couldn’t find the Welsh word for them. As long as it’s acceptable I will have NO problem using a direct translation.
In the US the larva of the firefly is called a glow worm… The firefly is a beetle. We’ve seen a large drop in the number of fireflies and many suspect it’s the use of chemicals and pesticides on lawns. I’ve gotten rid of almost all the lawn in our backyard and put in lots of hostas and ferns, along with other shade loving plants. Slugs eat the hostas, and so it’s been a battle to keep them away. Earlier this year I read that glow worms feed on slugs though, so I’ve only been using a garlic spray to keep the slugs down to manageable numbers. I see spots on some of my plants where they’ve been eating, but they aren’t devastating my plants. So it seems we’ve come to a good compromise. I don’t mind a few chewed on hostas as long as I can sit back at dusk and watch the fireflies dancing in the sky!
I wish there were more people like you willing to compromise the instant bottled “perfection” of the neat, pest free garden, that we are encouraged to have (neddless to say, encouraged by the conpamies that sell us the bottled perfection).
I use nematodes to control the slugs on our garden, because there’s no poisons, and all it does is temporarily boosts the number of naturally occuring nematodes in the soil, who then feed on more slugs than usual, and cut down their numbers to something manageable.
But I don;t use nematodes in the autumn, because I don’t fancy clearing up all the dead stuff that the slugs eat then, so I leave the slugs multiply and do the clearing up for me. Presumably, the birds, the frogs etc get a bit of a burst of extra food as well, in the run up to winter.
@Iestyn could you PM me where to get nematodes that eat slugs? Usually I can grow lettuces (lolla rossa) just fine in our cultivated garden (we have gardd wyllt at the back). I put egg shells around them and coffee grounds. But this year I am on my third sowing on the kitchen window sill and seriously considering keeping them in the house! I will not use pellets - birds die and, should any ever visit, hedgehogs too. Our birds are doing without our usual largesse - too many round here were dying of nasty infection. So nematodes might feed them - and slugs once the lettuces are big enough to survive nibbles!
Heddiw - today.
Lindys o mantell paun - caterpillars of peacock (they stay in groups when small).
Barf y afr - Goat’s beard.
Pidyn y gog - lords and ladies. (do not eat).
Wystrysen y coed - Oyster fungus.
Gweirloyn y glaw, o dan adain - Ringlet, under wing.
Cheers J.P.
Do not translate either, or at least not to your mam!