Castle Aching

[Edwardian]

7 hours ago, Hroth said:

Remarkable.... tosh!

 

So WW1 was a cover for the Martian Invasion, and the Spanish Flu came from Mars!!!

 

Hurrah!!!

 

 

 

You will note that no evidence is presented that the aliens came from Mars. This was an assumption because the track of the incoming object was spotted when it was near Mars, so that was the assumed origin. 

 

On the whole I'm inclined to dismiss this as an elaborate hoax to cover-up an earlier, genuine, incursion described by Wells.

[Hroth]

9 hours ago, Edwardian said:

 

You will note that no evidence is presented that the aliens came from Mars. This was an assumption because the track of the incoming object was spotted when it was near Mars, so that was the assumed origin. 

 

On the whole I'm inclined to dismiss this as an elaborate hoax to cover-up an earlier, genuine, incursion described by Wells.

 

Or perhaps....  Wroxham?

 

[Edwardian]

Has it been a bumper year for cockchafers aka May Bugs? I have found 4 in the house so far this May, never having encountered this before. At an inch or so long, they're quite substantial relative to most native bugs and beetles and pretty hard to miss. I mean, at  1/3 of a mm, they could even be modelled on the layout!

 

Anyone else experiencing this phenomenon? 

 

[jcredfer]

Way back, I was stationed at RAF Marham, with a quarter on Windy Ridge [no, not a nickname, that was the road name - and a fact!].  Both years produced dozens of them around the garden.  They aren't particularly skilful at flight and given their size, well worth ducking when they approached.

 

Julian

[Edwardian]

3 minutes ago, jcredfer said:

Way back, I was stationed at RAF Marham, with a quarter on Windy Ridge [no, not a nickname, that was the road name - and a fact!].  Both years produced dozens of them around the garden.  They aren't particularly skilful at flight and given their size, well worth ducking when they approached.

 

Julian

 

Yes, some householders relate that they fly into them with some force. Mine have all been beetling around on the carpet, save the dead one. 

 

Just never seen them in any of my gaffs before, notwithstanding consistently rural locations and proximity to arable land. Sometimes an insect species will have a bumper year and I wondered if it was the turn of the cockchafer. 

 

Apparently another nickname is 'doodlebug' and they make a loud whirring noise in flight, hence, I suppose ....

 

[Northroader]

Ah, now my uncle served on that vessel. She was on the China station, sailing hundreds of miles up the Yangtze. It seems there were still pirates, etc., on the river. Very hot and humid, he contracted T.B. and was shipped home. Prolonged convalescence in a sanatorium set in pinewoods of darkest Shropshire. Streptomycin was still to be introduced, fresh air was the cure, the poor sods had to have the windows wide open all year round, so the drinking water froze in the glasses in the winter. He married one of the nurses, an Evans from Much Wenlock, in 1940, a certain three year olds earliest memory.

[jcredfer]

Re. Marham, the soil was very light, as might be expected from it's location, which may have suited the Larvae of the May Bug, given that it spends several years in the soil, eating roots.  My family home in Devon, did have some Bugs, too, but much less in number, perhaps because the soil there was good heavy Devonshire red.  That leads to a slight conundrum, as the soil in Devon was very fertile, so had loads of roots to be chomped, but heavy to move through, whereas the Marham soil had been exhausted of nutrients from continued vegetable planting, which was eaten, without nutrient being refurbished.

 

The first year I was there, I populated a good portion of the veg garden with some cabbage plants, purchased, by  Dutch auction, at Swaffham Market.  They did very well in the light soil and some gentle watering [remember 76??], reaching a size, rather smaller than a tennis ball on a stalk.  Until, one morning whilst filling the kettle for the reviving first mug, a movement was noticed in the veggie patch.  A closer look revealed no furry intruder, nor one of the feathered kind.  As the kettle continued to approach the required level, another movement attracted the attention, then a couple more - as one after another the cabbage heads overcame the feeble support of the stems and simply fell to the earth, lacking strength to stand!  Such was the lack of nutrient, that they could not progress beyond what the plants brought with them.

 

Back to the May Bugs, I can only imagine that their Larvae must have been living in the relative comfort of the lawn, thriving on the grass roots and easy soil, it couldn't have been the barren vegie patch.  Here in Salisbury, there have been few garden sightings of May Bug flights, despite reasonably light and very fertile soil - however, there are lots of very plump Starlings and piles of uprooted moss - umm!!    😉

 

[Nearholmer]

There were a good number of them on the estate where my grandfather was gardener in Surrey, again very light soil. I remember digging up one of the larvae under a hedgerow when I was little, and being utterly repulsed by the “giant maggot”.

 

 

Edited May 25, 2023 by Nearholmer

[Andy Hayter]

Lots here and not just this year.  Again a light soil but most of the larvae are found in the compost bins.  

[Hroth]

4 hours ago, Edwardian said:

Has it been a bumper year for cockchafers aka May Bugs? I have found 4 in the house so far this May, never having encountered this before. At an inch or so long, they're quite substantial relative to most native bugs and beetles and pretty hard to miss. I mean, at  1/3 of a mm, they could even be modelled on the layout!

 

Anyone else experiencing this phenomenon? 

 

 

At my parents house, they would fly up the road and into the windows with a thud, stagger around in a dazed manner, then grumble away into the night...

 

 

[16Brunel]

10 hours ago, Edwardian said:

cockchafers aka May Bugs

 

And peoplequery the names we give to places/things here in Australia!

[St Enodoc]

1 hour ago, 16Brunel said:

 

And peoplequery the names we give to places/things here in Australia!

Yes, it sounds like what happens when you don't wear any jocks under your daks.

[Compound2632]

Woodlice are cheeselogs round here but nowhere else, I believe.

[Schooner]

15 hours ago, Edwardian said:

Anyone else experiencing this phenomenon?

Can confirm, bumper crop this year.

 

1 hour ago, Compound2632 said:

Woodlice are cheeselogs

They seem to have a unique strength of dialect names still in use. Granfer-gravies being the correct one, of course, but there's a lot to choose from. Any idea why?

[WFPettigrew]

1 hour ago, Compound2632 said:

Woodlice are cheeselogs round here but nowhere else, I believe.

 

With half my ancestry coming from just north of Maidenhead, you've taken me back!  My grandfather and great aunt always called them cheeselogs, but I haven't heard that since my childhood!

[Edwardian]

Nice ....

 

 

[Donw]

2 hours ago, Compound2632 said:

Woodlice are cheeselogs round here but nowhere else, I believe.

 

I was going to say I knew that name too then I noticed where you live. I grew up in Caversham and Marion in Heckfield. So it may well  be local.

 

Don 

[Caley Jim]

9 hours ago, Compound2632 said:

Woodlice are cheeselogs round here but nowhere else, I believe.

In Scotland they are 'greybacks', which was the name CR enginemen gave to the 60 class.  In other words they were lousy engines!

 

Jim

[Edwardian]

Another thing thriving this year hereabouts are Jackdaws. I have a soft spot for corvids and the Jackdaws are a favourite of mine; very bright and quite endearing in some of their characteristics. I also find beauty in them. They are good puzzle solvers, can use tools, are endearingly monogamous with their breeding partner but can have enduring same-sex pairings too, and can befriend people, possibly because they are thought capable of recognising not just other specific Jackdaws, but can tell one human from another and at some level can read our expressions. 

 

Not sure the extent to which people in the Middle Ages saw the need to distinguish between corvids. Jackdaw as a term I thing goes no further back that the C15th. Whereas crows and ravens get specific mentions, from what I can tell Jackdaws were probably just referred to as "choughs", a more generic name before it came to refer to a specific type, the chuff. 

 

Jackdaw, like his cousin Magpie, can have kleptomaniacal tendencies were shiny things are concerned. However, no one has, so far as I know, penned an opera buffa concerning the admirable Jackdaw, so this will have to do ....

 

 

[Schooner]

26 minutes ago, Edwardian said:

Not sure the extent to which people in the Middle Ages saw the need to distinguish between corvids.

 

Must be something in the air...

[Edwardian]

Just now, Schooner said:

 

Must be something in the air...

 

Good video. Went and found it immediately after discovering that the etymology of Jackdaw only went back to the C15th .

 

For research on how bloody brilliant these birds are, see:

 

 

 

[Nearholmer]

I’m going to buck a trend here, and reveal that I’m considering buying a shotgun, to shoot the bl@@dy things* with, because they’ve adopted a habit of sitting on the bedroom window sill, banging on the glass (yes, not tapping, banging) at first light, which is flipping early, too early.

 

Worst of it is, I think I caused the problem, by leaving treats for them on the window sill.

 

*I think it’s a couple of crows, but the last thought in mind is checking the colour of their beaks.

 

PS: when the same thing happened when I was staying at a place out in the bogs in Ireland, the old guy there reckoned it was a portent, but he couldn’t say of what, so he may have been right, or not.

 

 

 

Edited May 26, 2023 by Nearholmer

[Compound2632]

34 minutes ago, Nearholmer said:

PS: when the same thing happened when I was staying at a place out in the bogs in Ireland, the old guy there reckoned it was a portent, but he couldn’t say of what, so he may have been right, or not.

 

I'm reminded of Pte. Frazer's story about his shipmate cursed to die by the island idol. "And did he die?" "Yes, last year, at the age of 84." 

[Caley Jim]

Our targets would be magpies.  They are vicious bullies.  I came back to my practice after lunch one day to find two of them setting about a sparrow.  The poor little thing had had its head pecked bare of feathers and raw.  They flew off on my arrival, but I don't know what became of the sparrow.

 

BTW, sparrows are known around these parts as speugs, as in the poem:

 

Twa birds sat oan a barra,

Yin wis a speug an' the ither a sparra.

 

Jim

[Edwardian]

1 hour ago, Nearholmer said:

I’m going to buck a trend here, and reveal that I’m considering buying a shotgun, to shoot the bl@@dy things* with, because they’ve adopted a habit of sitting on the bedroom window sill, banging on the glass (yes, not tapping, banging) at first light, which is flipping early, too early.

 

Worst of it is, I think I caused the problem, by leaving treats for them on the window sill.

 

*I think it’s a couple of crows, but the last thought in mind is checking the colour of their beaks.

 

PS: when the same thing happened when I was staying at a place out in the bogs in Ireland, the old guy there reckoned it was a portent, but he couldn’t say of what, so he may have been right, or not.

 

 

 

 

Serve you right. My Labs have taken to getting me up before the dawn chorus, so no sympathy from me!

 

17 minutes ago, Caley Jim said:

 

Twa birds sat oan a barra,

Yin wis a speug an' the ither a sparra.

 

Jim

 

It's times like this I realise how well you do given English is your second language

 

😉