Owner: The Green Fingered Photographer URL:http://thegreenfingeredphotographer.blogspot.com Join Date: Sat, 12 May 2007 08:58:36 -0500 Rating:0 Site Description: The Green fingered photographer is a blog all about my favourite interests of Photography, Nature and Plants which have grown and complimented each other for a number of years Site statistics:Click here
Between The Showers.... 2007-05-16 11:52:00 In between the showers yesterday it was quite sunny so I decided that I would make the most of the sunny spells and go to Granville Nature Reserve . It is situated in Donnington just outside of Telford. The whole site has a very industrial past and it was the last deep mine in Shropshire closing in 1979. As a result of the mining activity lots of mounds and spoil heaps are dotted all over creating little eco habitats throughout the reserve.A rather heavy shower had just ended when I got there and the sun had come out, the hawthorn blossom caught my eye as it was glistening with the rain whilst some of it was still in shadow. Walking around the reserve the Oxeye daisy stood out , several stems were all twisted together but once again what caught my eye was the rain drops on the flower head. Oxeye daisies are a very common sight but I can't help smiling when I see them because they are a simple but beautiful flower. One of the flowers that was covering the ground in abundance was Speedw Read more:Showers
What a day 2007-04-15 20:31:00 There I was having my breakfast and morning cuppa outside contemplating how we where going to plant up the vegetable patch, when I could hear a lot of twittering. I am not one of those people who can tell what type of bird it is from its singing, but I can recognise a Goldfinch. Looking around I could see one in the cherry tree in the next door neighbours garden not only that but I could see a nest with the other one sat in it.Well as you can imagine this was something special. Not only was the nest quite visible from my back garden , I have never seen one nesting before. The best thing is that from my daughters bedroom you can look down onto the nest and see three little blue and brown speckled eggs, what a result.I shall keep you posted on the developments with regular updates and photographs.After all the excitement of the Goldfinch it was time to plant up the veggie patch. As we are new to this we decided to have a mixture of seed and bought veggie seedlings, this was mainly due t
Vetetable Patch....Doing Nicely 2007-05-21 16:00:00 Things are doing nicely in the vegetable patch. We are still carrying out nightly sorties into the garden to keep the slug numbers under control. I am beginning to wander if there is a slug factory nearby that it working overtime, as we seem to have a never ending supply.Despite this everything is sprouting up. The broccoli has started to produce its florets, the tomatoes are flowering (bit of leaf curl, might be caused by recent colder nights), the peas are sending out their tendrils and starting to climb the poles, the potatoes bags are now full to the top with soil and we are just waiting for them to flower and the parsnip seeds are all coming up.With all the recent rain lately all the water butts are full, not wanting to waste the bath water I used The Drought Buster and watered all over the garden with the hose, the garden might not need it but at least it was not wasted. Read more:Patch
Berrington Pool 2007-05-21 15:10:00 Berrington Pool is one of my favourite places to go in Shropshire . It is situated down a country lane not far from Cross Houses, Shrewsbury.I like it so much because it is one of the few places you can go to that you can't hear any traffic noise and you just have peace and quiet accompanied by bird song. It also has a remarkable amount of wild and plant life around it. At the moment yellow flag iris's are all around the edge, it wont be long before they are joined by a multitude of other wild plants. As you might of guessed I am a bit of a fan of Dragon and Damselflies and Berrington pool has a large number of species present. One of them is the Red-Eyed Damselfly. The combination of large red eyes and a azure blue body certainly makes it stand out. The males behave in a particular way as well which makes it interesting to watch them.Each male has its own territory, which is a Lilly pad. They vigorously defend their own pad from other males and wait for a female to pass ,then they p
Dragon Hunting Day 2007-05-19 18:39:00 The day was led by Mike Averill who is from Worcester Wildlife Trust . Mike has a keen interest in recording the Club -Tailed Dragon
fly (Gomphus vulgatissimus) and briefed us on what to look for and where we would likely to find them. Our first place to search on the River Severn was at Atcham. We struck gold straight away as one of the dragonflies was emerging. This is a fascinating process to watch as it seems impossible that the dragonfly can come out of such a small case. The case left behind is called the exuvia and is collected by the British Dragonfly Society who use them to confirm hatching locations and numbers. Once it's wings have dried out the dragonfly usually flies away from the river to find cover where it can rest in safety. Club-Tailed Dragonflies are also a little different from all other British dragonflies, as their eyes are separate and not joined , which is a good pointer if you ever think you have seen one.This is the first time I have seen them in the five year
Windy...But At Least It Was Dry..ish 2007-05-18 21:18:00 Today was the first day for a while when it has not been raining all day, I know other bloggers like Moi are desperate for rain, but I for one am glad it stopped today, well mostly.My wife and I decided to go to Whixall Moss which is a vast nature reserve managed by Natural England . Whixall is one of a group of mosses the others being Fenn's, Bettisfield, Wem & Cadney Mosses. They form a Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI) and straddle the English/Welsh border near Whitchurch, they are of international importance for wildlife. The Mosses are one of the most southerly lowland raised bogs in Britain and, at 948 hectares (2,340 acres), are the third largest.I like to visit here several times a year as the moss is home to several unique insects, that can not be seen anywhere else in the Midlands. Today was also the first proper day that I have been out to photograph Dragonflies and although it was extremely windy I wasn't disappointed. In fact in someways it helped because the d Read more:Windy
Costa Nothing !!!!! 2007-05-24 08:50:00 In a recent post from Ruth my attention was drawn to the possible benefit of used coffee grounds, both as a deterrent for slugs and a soil conditioner.I have carried out a bit of research from the Internet and found that Starbucks actively give away their grounds as they have carried out a study into the benefits for the garden. Further studies by various groups and organisations have also found them to beneficial and an easy way to reduce waste to landfill.We do not have a Starbucks in Telford but do have a Costa Coffee . They do not have the same policy in place as Starbucks but were very friendly and only to happy to let me have the previous days coffee grounds.Whilst we were there we had a drink and a cake, several of the staff were quite interested in what I had told them and were keen to find out how it works out. I went to collect the grounds this morning. The bag weighed about 10kg, I sorted through it and put the coffee bags to one side as I will add them to the Bokashi Bucket Read more:Nothing
Green Thumb Sunday 2007-05-27 11:06:00 Green ThumbSunday
JoinClematis after the rain from my back gardenGardeners, Plant and Nature lovers can join in every Sunday, visit As the Garden Grows for more information. Read more:Green
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The Slug Report.... 2007-05-27 10:27:00 To try and find out how effective the used coffee grounds from Costa Coffee were I decided to conduct a scientific test that would answer that question. I went out into the garden and herded up several slugs of varying sizes and placed them into a square of coffee grounds. The squares were in different parts of the garden and one was wet and the other was dry.After quite a few minutes the slugs started to move around. It was interesting that a first they all seemed reluctant to cross over the grounds, but eventually they plucked up the courage and some made their escape, while others stayed in the square.I'm not sure what conclusions I can reach from this as it seemed only certain types of slugs escaped. The size seemed to matter and I don't know whether bigger ones can put up with the grounds and the smaller ones can't. All I can say is that coffee grounds are not a 100% slug repellent. How ever all is not lost because the grounds have another benefit, in that they are a FREE sourc
After Work.... 2007-06-02 09:23:00 At work yesterday I was thinking to myself what can I do when I finish work with the first completely sunny day for a while...Well after some pondering I decided that I would go to Whixall Moss .I like to visit the moss several times a year, as not only is it completely void of any traffic noise, it is home to two species of insects that are found nowhere else in the Midlands. One of them is the Large Heath butterfly ,the other is the White-faced darter. It is quite a small dragonfly, about 37mm in length and is found on the moss because they require acidic bog pools and sphagnum moss. As you can imagine they are severely threatened by the destruction of their habitat .The major culprits being the drainage of bogs and the commercial collection of moss for hanging baskets.This is one of the reasons why it is so important to preserve what is left and to use peat and sphagnum moss alternatives for our gardens. One of the things I also like about the moss is that it is very flat and nothi
Quick...Time To Get Out 2007-05-31 12:06:00 Should I or shouldn't I...that is the question ....someone said something like that once.Well today I said it because yet again it was raining and I wanted to get out and about. It brightened up around 10.00 am so I went for it.I decided to go to Granville Nature reserve again as it is not far from where I live. I like to go back to places over and over again as you get to know the place and have a good idea where to look for certain things.One of the things I go to Granville for is to see the Orchids. At this time of the year the Early Purple Orchids are just about coming into flower, they are dotted about all over the reserve and make a beautiful sight . A little bit later on Bee Orchids grow in a particular spot within the reserve and I shall make a trip there to see them. One plant I have not seen before is Brooklime, the flowers are very similar in appearance and colour to Speedwell and is part of the same family.Having not seen it before I had to look it up in one of my books an Read more:Quick
Growing Nicely 2007-06-05 13:47:00 All the vegetables are certainly stating to shoot up, after all the rain the sunshine over the last few days has made a difference. With this being the first time that we have grown vegetables we have had a few failures and successesOne of the failures has been when we have sown seed straight into the ground , it just hasn't worked.What ever the reason for this is next year we will sow seed into pots first, then when they are bigger plant them into the ground.You can also see that I have put the coffee grounds onto the vegetable patch, I can't say for certain but we haven't had as many slugs here since putting them down, so it may be more useful than I thought. One of the things that has been a great successes are the vegetables we have grown in sacks or truggs, as you can see the potatoes are romping ahead and the onions and the peppers are doing really well to. In the picture you can also see pots of seedlings that I have just potted on. The funny thing is I thought I would remem Read more:Growing
Green Thumb Sunday 2007-06-03 12:43:00 Green ThumbSunday
Join Just to remind me how wet it was last week Gardeners, Plant and Nature lovers can join in every Sunday, visit As the Garden Grows for more information. Read more:Green
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What Can You See From Your Work Window ? 2007-06-06 12:43:00 For the past 6 years I have been a Signalman at Harlescott Crossing Signal Box near Shrewsbury,working for Network Rail . Now at this point many of you will be going oh no !!!Well I'm not going to go on about things that you might have experienced, I'm just going to let you know what I can see from my work place and how it came about. The signal box is open 24hrs a day, but may close on a Saturday night if there is engineering work taking place. As I spend a lot of time there I thought that I would make the land at the side of the track more pleasing to look at. It initially started off as a place I could bring extra plants from home to but I soon ran out of plants from home and I thought it would be a good idea to plant it up with native wildflowers.To go about this started clearing the land opposite the signal box. I was amazed at what I found amongst all of the weeds and I used to get funny looks from people passing the crossing as I would be doing this at 2 in the morning, when Read more:Window
Whoooooo!!!!!!! 2007-06-11 14:08:00 I was a bit surprised today to find that Ruth from Me,My Life,My Garden has nominated me for a Thinking Blogger Award . I am relatively new to Blogging ,having only started 7 weeks ago. It quickly became apparent to me that there a number of established bloggers out there who make new bloggers welcome with their comments . Ruth is one of these people.Ruth's friendliness and humour comes through in her comments and posts, which makes you feel that she is one of life's genuinely nice people.The hard bit is choosing 5 other bloggers to pass the award onto. After much deliberating ... here goes. My nominations are ...in no particular order...Heather from Wiggly Wigglers , who got me started with this blogging, she has so many innovative ideas that she shares on her blog. She is always at the front in using technology to promote her ethics, for example, her amusing and informative Podcasts .Donna from Works In Progress!!! , who's determined to make a career out of her fabulous art work.
Green Thumb Sunday 2007-06-09 18:08:00 How to join GreenThumbSundayGreen Thumb
Sunday Blogroll Ragged RobinTo country girls of an earlier age,ragged-robin was a plant to be taken very seriously. It was one of the many British wildflowers - including the three common buttercups,marsh marigold and columbine - to be given the additional name of bachelor's buttons. West Country girls, in the 16th Century , used to pick the flowers several at a time, give each the name of an unmarried local boy and tuck them under their aprons. Whichever flower opened first was said to identify either the boy the girl should marry, or the one who wanted to marry her.The name bachelor's buttons has been applied to almost any plant that has double flowers,or tiny flowers gathered into tight , ball-like heads that resemble old-fashioned cloth buttons.Another name that ragged-robin shares with with several other plants - such as red and white campion and greater stichwort - is thunder flower. Children believed that if they picked the flower thu
Photo Hunters 2007-06-09 03:37:00 Todays theme...ShoesHow to join PhotoHunters
Photo Hunters BlogrollShoe TowerThis 15ft Shoe Tower was created from discarded horse shoes, which started as a joke over 40 years ago. It still stands outside what is now a disused Blacksmith's in Shropshire ,as a testament to bygone times.
Llynclys Common 2007-06-14 04:05:00 I have been to Llynclys Common
several times in the past years , I have usually visited in May time to see the carpet of bluebells and the early Orchids that are dotted around the common.As with any nature reserve it requires management to keep it in tip top condition. Much of the open grassland is grazed by sheep for most of the year and this helps in controlling the bracken. Small amounts of scrub clearance goes on and it was on one of these sites I was greeted with a bank for of beautiful white orchids. I had not seen this species of orchid before and was quite excited and pleased that I had come later in the year than I have in the past. The whole of the bank was covered with , what I later learnt was, Greater Butterfly-orchid. I was spoiled for choice but I hope these two pictures give you a good idea of how they were. Around the edge of the common the fields are full of grasses and wildflowers, I'm sure if someone from a 100 years ago was to visit they would think that not a lot
Well I Didn't Know That.. 2007-06-13 17:37:00 Whilst carrying out the nightly check on the slug invasion in the back garden, I came across a sight I had not seen before, Earthworms mating. I couldn't see much going on , so I went and got my camera.The next thing I heard was "Where are you going with that this time on night ?"I then explained what I had seen to my wife and asked her to come and have a look, to my surprise my daughter also came and when she saw them goes "that's gross". This made me chuckle a bit.I don't know a great deal about worms so I had a look around and came up with this:-Worm BiologyA worm's body is made up of many segments called 'annuli'. Underneath these are longitudinal muscles that run the length of the worm's body. The muscles contract and relax, making the worm move. The annuli help out because they have tiny hairs attached to them, called 'setae'.Worms don't breathe in the human sense, largely due to the fact that they have no lungs. They do need oxygen though, so they absorb it through ti
Bokashi Bucket....6 Weeks On 2007-06-18 07:28:00 The first Bokashi bucket is now full. It has taken 6 weeks to get to this stage and I'm pleased to say we have noticed how much less waste we are throwing out. Before we got the Bokashi bucket we used to put our organic waste in either in our wormery or into the compost bin. The problem that we found was that the waste would build up and would start to get fluffy from the bacteria . That then had to get thrown into the household bin as it was no use. With the Bokashi being in the kitchen this problem has not arisen as the waste gets added daily to the bucket. I would say that initially we were a bit generous with the amount of active bran that was added and we didn't get much liquid . We started adding less bran and the liquid started collecting at the bottom of the bucket and we drained it off 2-3 times a week. You know when you are doing it right as the liquid smells slightly vinegary, this is because the waste is being pickled as opposed to normal composting as it is being done an Read more:Weeks
Happy Fathers Day !!!! 2007-06-17 05:58:00 Happy Fathers
Day I had to laugh this morning when I opened my Fathers day presents from my daughter. My daughter is just coming out of her teenage "Kevin" stage...what ever!!!!....and she has suddenly developed a sense of humour. I knew something was going on as she couldn't help smiling. I opened my first present and to my amusement and hers it was a Excess Nasal Hair and Eyebrow trimmer. At last I thought I have reached that age of protruding nasal hair and eyebrows that waft about in the wind. But at least now I can control them, as long as I remember not to insert the trimmer more than 6 inches or was that 6mm up my nose.I shall be wearing my Superdad T shirt and badge with pride today whilst I tuck in to my cake.To all dads enjoy the day..... Read more:Happy
Green Thumb Sunday 2007-06-17 05:27:00 How to join GreenThumbSundayGreen Thumb
Sunday BlogrollField Scabious As many as 50 individual flowers may make up one of the purplish-blue flower heads of the Field Scabious that stand out conspicuously in fields all over Britain. Field Scabious is the largest and most attractive of several related plants; all are named after the reputation the juice once enjoyed for curing scabies (the scab or itch) and other diseases of the skin. It was drunk in an infusion, or applied externally in the form of an ointment.The dull green leaves of the field scabious form the diet of caterpillars of several butterflies and moths. Sheep and goats eat the plant but cattle dislike it. To prevent self pollination, the male stamens wither before the female stigmas mature, but at their peak they stand up erect, giving the impression of pins in a pin cushion.
Photo Hunters 2007-06-15 14:38:00 This weeks theme...Hair How to join PhotoHunters
Photo Hunters Blogrollclick to enlarge Yellow Dung-flyThese are familiar, albeit not very popular flies.They swarm around cow dung in large numbers and the golden haired males are particularly conspicuous. They are very active flies,constantly mating, laying eggs, or making forays to catch other flies attracted to the dung. They are common and widespread in a variety of habitats, especially well used pastures with woodland nearby. Which is where I photographed this one, Hope Valley nature reserve which is a woodland surrounded on one side by pasture land.
From Plot To Blog In 10 Minutes 2007-06-20 13:58:00 The first lot of Vegetables from our patch was had todayThe Broccoli was cut from the plot and put on the blog in less than 10 minutes...how fresh is that It was gorgeous
Green Thumb Sunday 2007-06-23 15:54:00 How to Join GreenThumbSundayGreen Thumb
Sunday BlogrollClick to enlargeWater LilyFor the past week the weather here in the U.K. has been very wet and stormy, gardens have been battered and lots of people have been flooded. All in all quite a miserable time considering its June and the start of Summer.On a rare break in the rain this water lily in my garden pond burst into life, I was out in the garden pottering around when I spotted it. It was perfect, no blemishes or marks on it as it had just opened, it was almost being defiant against the weather.
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