The House Martins are from a nest a few houses along from mine and the juveniles were landing on the remains of an old nest that fell down last year.
Juvenile House Martins Black Guillemot, Usan A new Vixen (garden)
Small Copper Butterfly, with Brass Band and howling dogs chorus
Newly fledged House Martins were using this old broken nest as a resting point where they could rest and call for food from their parents
Two House Sparrows eventually drove the young House Martins away
Blackbirds are struggling to find their usual food, this one in my front garden had found some Garden Snails trying to sit out the drought conditions, and it was behaving like a Song Thrush, bashing them against a stone
Olive doesn't like Craneflies but of course I do, partly because they sit still for photos
This adult Common Frog has taken to sitting on the edge of my pond watching the world go by. Usually it dives into the water when I see it, today it sat and posed thinking I couldn't see it
Lots of Small White Butterflies are laying eggs around our two gardens which might mean I'll have to leave the weeds alone, hooray!
Harvestman
Pellucid Hoverfly Volucella pellucens
Pellucid Hoverfly Volucella pellucens
A Tree Wasp as are most of the wasps I'm seeing. I've only seen one Common Wasp in my garden whereas in one year in the past I hade five nests, where are they? Have they been global warmed out of existence?
These Tree Wasps are quite couthie and not aggressive, they tolerate me standing very close
Murton NR, Wetlands, now very much drylands!
Small Copper Butterfly, the one in the video at the top of this post
Black Guillemot at Mains of Usan, south of Scurdie Ness
Always too far out, better in the video
I think this is a refurbished "Green Goddess" which I recall we had when the firemen went on strike many years ago. I wonder if it's on this cereal farm as a precaution in this weather and dry conditions.
The Green Goddess fire engine, or self-propelled emergency pump, to give it its proper name, was introduced in the 1950s to replace the wartime pumps then available to the Auxiliary Fire Service (AFS).
Most people will be surprised to learn that it was not until 1938 that the provision of fire-fighting services became a compulsory function of local authorities in Great Britain. In anticipation of war, the AFS was originally established in the same year to supplement the local authority fire brigades and it was the combined strength of these forces that battled the raging fires of the Blitz. In 1941 the fire service was nationalised with the 39 fire areas of the National Fire Service across England, Scotland and Wales replacing the 1,668 brigades which were then in existence. The AFS was absorbed into the national body.
The fire service was returned to local authority control on 1st April 1948 and the AFS, as part of the National Fire Service, disappeared. As part of the Government’s response to the threat of nuclear war, the Civil Defence and Auxiliary Fire Service were promptly reconstituted under the Home Office with the idea that both would be made up of civilian volunteers. The postwar AFS initially relied on wartime fire engines but a large fleet of purpose-built appliances was established in the mid-1950s, with the intention that some would be deployed in mobile fire columns of 144 vehicles to reinforce hard-pressed local services anywhere in the country. These vehicles were painted green to distinguish them from local authority fire brigade appliances, and not because they were under military control.
So to dispel the myth perpetuated by the Media, Green Goddesses were never Army fire engines.
As it happens the Army Fire Service did have some substantially similar appliances but they were generally red!
About 1,000 Green Goddess pumps remained at the beginning of 2005 and in times of crisis they had sometimes been crewed by military personnel, encouraging the misconception that they were military fire engines. As with the rest of the fire service, they were then no longer the responsibility of the Home Office but came under the purview of the, now defunct, Office of the Deputy Prime Minister - not the Ministry of Defence.
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