In the garden

Yesterday I spotted this wee beastie lurking in one of our flower beds, our biological snail control:

Mr Frog eyeing up his lunch.

We garden organically, and so the hedgehogs and frogs and toads are such welcome guests, not only because they are beautiful creatures, but also because they munch the slugs and snails. We’re trying to become more environmentally-minded in our garden, encouraging our native wild flowers from which the bees like to feed, and giving up trying to grow plants that the slugs find tasty and strip back to stems. So no more hostas for us.

The scarlet tiger moths (Callimorpha dominula) have been about for about the last fortnight. Chap found this newly-emerged specimen on our path.

Newly-emerged scarlet tiger moth.

We put him up out of the way on the honeysuckle, which is in full glorious bloom right now. The scent is intoxicating.

The roses are also looking and smelling fabulous right now. This one is a David Austen rose, Rosa ‘Heritage’.

Rosa ‘Heritage’.

The heavy blooms droop slightly. Pick them up to smell the flower and in our garden you are greeted with these little fellows, flea beetles:

Flea beetle central on Rosa ‘Heritage’.

The Viking bird pendant from Hattula, Finland

Jul2

I recently got this fab vintage piece for my Etsy shop, with its goofy face and its jiggly, dangly legs, and tried to find a bit more about it.

The bronze bird pendant necklace by Kalevala Koru, based on a silver Viking bird pendant from Hattula, Finland. For sale in my Etsy shop: click on photo for details. (NOW SOLD).

I knew it was made by the Finnish jewellery firm of Kalevala Koru of Helsinki, one of the largest jewellery firms in Finland, and a further google truffle told me it was designed by Kimmo Virkkunen. I also learned that it was based on a late Viking-era hoard find. My ears pricked up. I love me a hoard.

Here’s the original on which the modern iteration is based:

The Viking-era original sheet silver pendant. Note it doesn’t have any legs.

The caption in Finnish on the National Board of Antiquities webpage translates as ‘The bird-shaped pendant in silver is decorated with filigree. The pendant is part of a silver treasure found in Luurila in Hattula’.

A further google truffle tells me that the hoard was found in a field, part of a farm called Luurila in the municipality of Hattula in south-central Finland, near the village of Pelkola. The farm is on the south-west shore of Lake Renkojärvi. It is thought that the hoard was originally buried in a leather bag or some other container that had disintegrated; the ploughing of the field had spread the contents over an area of about 25 m². In 1906, after a few coins and a pendant had been found in the field, the site was excavated by the National Museum, and produced a significant number of finds.

The pendant dates from between 800-1025 AD, and the hoard was buried around 1040 AD. The hoard comprised silver necklets, pendants, and strap mounts, carnelian and glass beads, and 126 silver coins, including Anglo-Saxon ones from England and Byzantine ones with Kufic Arabic. The coins allowed the date of deposition of the hoard to be established to a very close date.

The pendant is made of sheet silver, with a filigree decoration. The bird’s legs are missing, but the suspension loop from which they presumably would have hung survives. The modern version by Kalevala Koru gives the bird the long, webbed feet of a waterfowl. Given the preponderance of lakes and inland waterways in Finland (there are over 55,000 lakes there, according to Wikipedia, which rather knock the 4,000 holes in Blackburn, Lancashire into a cocked hat), and the shape of the bird’s body, this does not seem like an unreasonable interpretation. It reminds me of a coot (Fulica atra) or a moorhen (Gallinula chloropus):

A coot. Photo by Marcus Rowland.

Moorhen (Gallinula chloropus). Photo by Tony Hisgett.

but as the moorhen doesn’t have webbed feet I guess the Kalevala Koru one at least can’t be that.

Most of the information on the hoard in this post comes from Anglo-Saxon Coins Found in Finland by C.A. Nordman, published in Helsingfors in 1921 and which has been digitised and made available on the web by the University of Illinois as part of its Brittle Books Project. Hurrah for UIUC!

Mares’ tails

Jun30

It was a beautiful day yesterday, with high, wispy mares’ tails clouds, all day.

The house martins were so high in the sky they were barely visible. Glorious.

She sells sea shells part 2

Jun29

I love nature jewellery, inspired by birds or flowers or animals. And it seems appropriate as beach time is on us that I have a lot of shell jewellery at the moment, either made from shells or depicting them. All are for sale in my Etsy shop: click on the photos for details.

Victorian mother of pearl and abalone necklace. (NOW SOLD).

Vintage shell earrings. (NOW SOLD).

Abalone and sterling silver pendant. (NOW SOLD).

Vintage mother of pearl and onyx cufflinks. (NOW SOLD).

Vintage abalone and stainless steel brooch.

1960s abalone and stainless steel brooch. (NOW SOLD).

Vintage Art Deco mother of pearl dress clip.

Art Deco mother of pearl dress clip. (NOW SOLD).

Vintage abalone heart pendant. (NOW SOLD).

Vintage 835 Portuguese silver bracelet. (NOW SOLD).

Vintage stainless steel and abalone brooch.

1960s stainless steel and abalone brooch. (NOW SOLD).

Vintage Carl M Cohr silver bangle bracelet.

Vintage Danish silver Carl M Cohr bangle bracelet. (NOW SOLD).

Vintage Mexican abalone and silver pendant and chain. (NOW SOLD).

Vintage modernist black abalone ring. (NOW SOLD).

Antique Arts and Crafts blister pearl brooch.

Vintage seed pearl ring. (NOW SOLD).

Vintage Arts and Crafts style pendant with pearl dangle.

Vintage Arts and Crafts style pendant with freshwater pearl dangle. (NOW SOLD).

Shelly, pearly, silvery, nacreous loveliness.

Sunday stroll: Fontmell Down

Jun22

Yesterday Chap and I headed off to the main part of Fontmell Down Nature Reserve, which is run by Dorset Wildlife Trust and situated about 5 km south of Shaftesbury in Dorset. Fontmell Down is a spur of chalk downland jutting out above the Blackmore Vale. The spur is bisected by two cross dykes, landscape features that are likely to date from the Middle Bronze Age. We visit this reserve often, but it is at its beautiful best this time of the year, we reckon. Click on all photos to embigggen/bigify.

The spur of Fontmell Down, part of the chalk downland above the Blackmore Vale in Dorset. The northern cross dyke is clearly visible, just in front of the woodland on the spur. The southern one is obscured by the wood.

The orchids are out and within a few minutes of being on the reserve we’d seen five different species: bee, common spotted, fragrant, pyramidal and the greater butterfly orchid.

Fragrant orchid (Gymnadenia conopsea).

Greater butterfly orchid (Platanthera chlorantha).

Common spotted orchid (Dactylorhiza fuchsii).

Viper’s bugloss (Echium vulgare) is such a pretty flower. It is a glorious blue, and beloved of moths and butterflies and bees. It doesn’t grow very high on the thin soil of the chalk downland, but I have seen it growing up to about 80 cm tall.

Viper’s bugloss (Echium vulgare).

We also saw milkworts (Polygala sp.) in pink and in blue, and the wonderfully vibrant flowers of birdsfoot trefoil (Lotus corniculatus). We always called this ‘the eggs and bacon plant’ when we were kids, for obvious reasons!

Birdsfoot trefoil (Lotus corniculatus).

There were also the enormous seedheads of goatsbeard (Tragopogon pratensis), like dandelion clocks on steroids. Goatsbeard flowers only open on sunny mornings, so the flower gained the charming folk name of Jack-go-to-bed-at-noon.

Goatsbeard (Tragopogon pratensis).

It was a rather blustery day, so we didn’t see too many butterflies, but we did see some fritillaries and a rather tatty painted lady (Vanessa cardui), as well as various blues and skippers.

A fritillary. I’m not very good on butterflies, but think this might be a dark green fritillary (Argynnis aglaja).

We also saw this chap – isn’t he wonderful? No idea what he is.

Mystery beetle with the most dashing striped antennae.

The beautiful down has a deep coombe on its southern side, Longcombe Bottom, with ravens flying over, cronking their atmospheric calls

Longcombe Bottom.

and there are stunning views to the south-west across the Blackmore Vale:

View looking south-east into Blackmore Vale, with the village of Fontmell Magna in the foreground of the vale.

We also walked on down to a chalk pit hollow nearby, where there was the best show of orchids. Just common spotted and pyramidal, but so beautiful.

The orchids in the chalk pit hollow: pyramidal orchids (Anacamptis pyramidalis) and common spotted orchids (Dactylorhiza fuchsii). Definitely click on this one to embiggen/bigify – it’s worth it, I promise!

A water pipeline has recently been built across the reserve, and it was interesting to see the different flowers that have popped up in the disturbed area: lots of oilseed rape and common poppies and thistles, whereas the undisturbed land was mainly cow parsley and nettles.

The different flora marks the recent pipeline disturbance.

The northern cross dyke had more orchids than on the other parts of the down, because the ditch provides a sheltered microclimate.

Looking north-westwards down the northern cross dyke, with Melbury Hill in the background.

A beautiful thistle. Not sure which kind, but what a gorgeous colour.

A beautiful thistle on Fontmell Down Nature Reserve.

Mmmm, comfy: Part 4

May8

Ballou often sits like this:

Mmmm, comfy.

She can spend long periods perched in this way. Strange creature.

The Salisbury Cathedral peregrines are back

Apr17

I wrote last year about the peregrines that were nesting on the spire of Salisbury Cathedral, and for the first time in 61 years had successfully hatched chicks—three of them.

Last year: peregrine parent and three chicks, Salisbury Cathedral, 27 May 2014.

Good news—they’re back, they’ve nested, and this year they’ve laid four eggs!

The eggs were laid over Holy Week and over Easter, which seems satisfyingly appropriate for an ecclesiastical nest site. The first egg was laid on Tuesday 31 March 2015, and with an approximately 33-day incubation period, it should hatch in the first few days of May, with the others hatching around the end of the first week of May (the Cathedral’s press release says mid-May. I’m not sure how they arrived at that date).

Last year there was a live webcam on which you could follow the progress of the family. The press release says the nest is being monitored by two cameras, but I’ve had a good poke around on the Cathedral’s website and they don’t seem to have provided a link to them yet. Maybe they’re going to wait until the eggs have hatched. I’ll add the link (or write a new post) as soon as I find it.

2 MAY UPDATE: The webcam is back – link here (webcam at the bottom of the page).

Even without pics, this is terrific news.

Young peregrine fledging, Salisbury Cathedral, 2014.

The last year that peregrines successfully nested at Salisbury Cathedral prior to last year’s brood was 1953. And lo! One of my favourite websites, Britain From Above, has a series of photos taken of the Cathedral in September 1953. I like to think that as the pilot circled above the Cathedral, somewhere alongside him in this photograph are the fledged chicks from that year’s brood:

Salisbury Cathedral, 5 September 1953. Image from the Britain From Above website: click on photo for details.

Salisbury Cathedral website.

Rather belated update: A total of four eggs were laid in the 2015 breeding season, and all four chicks fledged successfully in mid July.

Sad cat news – please help if you can

Apr4

Ugh, this is so horrible and upsetting. I’ve just found out that the Gillingham charity shop run by the Mere and Gillingham Branch of Cats Protection was burnt down in an arson attack a few days ago. The shop was badly damaged and all the stock destroyed. The branch relies on the income from this shop to provide for helping all the stray and unwanted cats it takes in, vaccinates, microchips, neuters, rehomes, and generally cares for.

Andrew Hamilton-Muspratt, the manager of the Cats Protection charity shop in Gillingham, in the burnt-out shop. Photo by Blackmore Vale Magazine staff.

Cats Protection has set up a JustGiving page for donations to help with looking after the cats that the shop provided for. This is an urgent appeal. Please give whatever you can to help—no amount is too small. The branch is absolutely devastated, and as a result of this awful, thoughtless act, the cats are now in dire need.

Our little Ballou came from the Mere and Gillingham Branch 12 years ago, and she has brought us so much joy.

A little about Cats Protection, from their website: Charity Registration No. 203644 & SCO37711. Cats Protection is the UK’s leading feline welfare charity. We help over 230,000 cats and kittens every year through our network of over 250 volunteer-run branches and 30 centres. We find homes for cats, promote the benefits of neutering and produce a wide range of cat care information for owners.

JustGiving donations page for the Mere and Gillingham Branch charity shop appeal.

Cats Protection website.

An ammonite gift

Mar18

Look at this beauty! Chap was given it by a friend the other day. It’s a huge nautilus-like ammonite. Our friend is another historic building conservator, and found the fossil in a weathered and degraded stone that she had to remove from an old building in Sherborne, in Dorset, in order to fit a replacement piece.

What a lovely gift.

The suture lines of the living chambers as the animal grew show clearly.

The opening where the animal would have lived.

The stone is almost certainly Sherborne Stone, a limestone which was quarried close to the ‘new’ Sherborne Castle, and the quarries have been recently reopened. According to the quarry’s website, Sherborne Stone dates from the Bajocian age of the Middle Jurassic, and Wikipedia tells me that the Bajocian lasted from 171.6 to 167.7 million years ago. Looking at the list of ammonite species known to have lived in that near-four million year period, I don’t think I’m going to easily identify it, which is a shame. I’d love to know which species it is.

A nautilus in the Himeji Aquarium, Japan. Photo by Daiju Azuma.

Three present-day nautilus species. Left to right, N. macromphalus (left), A. scrobiculatus (centre), N. pompilius (right). Photo by User:Mgiganteus1.

The shells of three present-day nautilus species. Left to right, Nautilus macromphalus (left), Allonautilus scrobiculatus (centre), Nautilus pompilius (right). Photo by User:Mgiganteus1.

Look how big it is! It’s really heavy.

So heavy that my hand’s starting to go red!

A present-day nautilus for comparison. Photo by DanielCD.

Chap and I love looking for fossils. Part of our work in archaeology back in the early 90s involved a lot of fieldwalking (or Surface Artefact Collection, as it later became known)—an archaeological surveying technique that seems to have gone somewhat out of favour (it’s very time and personpower-heavy). Essentially it involves walking line transects spaced at set distances up and down ploughed fields, and picking up everything of archaeological interest, so the distribution of various artefact types and densities can then be plotted. This may be an indicator of below-soil archaeological sites and features such as pits and ditches that have been disturbed by ploughing, activity which has brought the artefacts to the surface. Anyhow, a lot of our fieldwalking was around the Wessex region and so on chalk geology, so we would also find many fossils, mainly echinoids (sea urchins). As these aren’t of archaeological interest, we got to keep them. So we have a great collection of lovely fossilised sea urchins. Even now, when we go for a walk, old archaeological habits die hard and we’re usually scanning the ground for flint flakes and pot sherds (and of course fossils) rather than looking at the view …

A curious Horus brooch

Feb12

This little cloisonné enamel brooch caught my eye: the colours are beautiful, as is the design. At first I wondered if it might be an imperial eagle of some sort (not the Russian one, as that has two heads), but perhaps a generalised version, as it appeared to be holding a royal orb in either clawed foot.

Horus brooch. Click on photo for details.

Horus brooch, for sale in my Etsy shop. Click on photo for details. NOW SOLD.

I love the beautiful way the wing feathers are depicted, and the triangles to represent the bird’s speckled breast. Taking a closer squint I noticed the ‘breeches’ on the bird of prey, and realised it is a hawk or falcon of some sort. And then it clicked: the ancient Egyptian god Horus was depicted as a falcon. Talk about the proverbial lightbulb switching on …

So off I head to do a bit of poking about on the web, and come up with this wonderful object:

One of the treasures of King Tutankhamun's tomb: Horus. Photo by ***

One of the treasures of King Tutankhamun’s tomb: Horus / Ra-Horakhty jewel. Photo by Jean-Pierre Dalbéra (check out his flickr stream: it’s amazing!)

My little brooch is based on this design, or something very similar to it. The beauty above was excavated in 1922 from the Tomb of Tutankhamum, apparently, though I have struggled to find out much more information than that. I assume it is with all the other King Tut treasures in the Egyptian Museum in Cairo, and was hoping to search their collections database online, but sadly the website for the museum is under construction at the moment. I have the 1972 guidebook to the British Museum Treasures of Tutankhamun exhibition, and it is not shown in that, so maybe it didn’t come over here for the exhibition.

(A small aside: I visited the exhibition with my family when I was nine. We queued outside the Museum for hours and hours, but luckily the summer weather was sunny and there were plenty of ice cream vans nearby. I was so excited to see the famous mask that I scurried through the rest of the exhibition, only to be dismayed when I had looked at the mask—the final artefact in the display—and then tried to go back to see the rest of the exhibits (and find my family) that the guard refused to let me back as the exhibition had a ‘one way’ policy to avoid clog ups. I was gutted and so annoyed at myself and my impetuosity. One day I will make it to Cairo to have a proper, long look at everything.)

Queues at the British Museum to see the Treasures of Tutankhamun exhibition, 1972.

Horus was the Ancient Egyptian god of the sun, war and protection, and was usually portrayed as a falcon or as a man with a falcon’s head; by later Dynastic times he had merged with another sun god, Ra, whose symbol was a sun disc, to form Ra-Horakhty. The sun disc above the falcon’s head suggests this is thus a depiction of Ra-Horakhty. The round objects that Ra-Horakhty is holding in the Tutankhamun object are shen rings, which signify eternal protection, and above them are ankhs, which represent eternal life.

The Horus / Ra-Horakhty falcon on my brooch is missing the sun disc above its head, and the configuration of the ankhs and the shen rings have become a little confused so they look more like royal orbs, but this may well be due to the western artist’s lack of familiarity with the symbols and iconography of Ancient Egypt.

I wonder which member of the falcon family (Falconidae) is depicted on the Tutankhamun specimen. The speckled breast and eye markings are very distinctive, similar to those found on some hobbys, merlins and falcons. I’m sure someone has done research into to species of animals portrayed in Ancient Egyptian art. There’s quite a list of possibles from which to choose, although many of the species listed just winter in Egypt and breed elsewhere, rather than being year-round residents.

Eurasian hobby (Falco subbuteo).

Merlin, Eurasian subspecies (Falco columbarius subsp. aesalon aesalon).

Lanner falcon (Falco biarmicus).

Saker falcon (Falco cherrug). Photo by Dick Daniels.

Barbary falcon (Falco peregrinus subsp. pelegrinoides), a subspecies of Peregrine falcon.

Barbary falcon (Falco pelegrinoides). Photo by Jason Halsall.

Barbary falcon (Falco peregrinus subsp. pelegrinoides), a subspecies of Peregrine falcon. Photo by Jason Halsall.

I wonder if the Barbary falcon (Falco peregrinus subsp. pelegrinoides) is the most obvious candidate, as it is a subspecies of the Peregrine falcon, the fastest animal on earth, and one which has been admired for thousands of years for its speed, grace and hunting prowess.

Inglenookery

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