Archive | July 2014

Insect jewellery

Now I know this isn’t for everyone, but I love insect jewellery. There’s something about the idea of wearing a bee or a spider or a ladybird as adornment: quirky, fun, and a pretty little celebration of the beauties of the natural world. They’re certainly not for those with arachnophobia or other squeams (I don’t know if that is a word, but if you can be squeamish, I don’t see why not!)

Scarab beetles were incredibly popular among the Ancient Egyptians for many centuries. Of these, the most famous example must be the stunning pectoral (chest decoration) from Tutankhamun’s tomb with its central yellow scarab, carved from glass sourced from the Libyan desert. This glass is really unusual—it was formed when a meteorite hit the desert sand and the extreme heat formed glass (glass is made from silica, and the most common constituent of sand is silica). The pectoral dates to c. 1323 BC.

The central yellow scarab beetle in Tutankhamun’s pectoral. The beetle is carved from Libyan desert glass, formed when a meteorite struck the sands of the desert.

I had a wonderful early Victorian turquoise glass scarab brooch in my shop, and was very sad when it sold—it was my favourite piece. I don’t know who made it, but whoever it was they had the most fantastic eye for detail and craftsmanship. It was a pretty wee thing and the level of detail was amazing. The lady who bought it adored it too and told me it was her favourite piece of all her jewellery. I love hearing things like that from my customers: it makes it so rewarding.

Early Victorian turquoise glass scarab brooch. Sold in my Etsy shop. (NOW SOLD).

The Victorians had a particular passion for insect jewellery. Their brooches were often expensive pieces, made with platinum or gold and encrusted with precious stones such as diamonds, rubies, sapphires and emeralds.

Victorian sapphire and diamond bumblebee brooch.

Victorian Abalone pearl, ruby, diamond and gold beetle brooch. French.

Victorian emerald, ruby and rose-cut diamond dragonfly brooch.

And I couldn’t leave out a nod to The Master, René Lalique (1860-1945). Here is a wasp hat pin of his:

René Lalique wasp hat pin.

Simply stunning.

I have three pieces of insect jewellery in my Etsy shop at the moment, none as grand as those above, but charming nevertheless.

A pair of spider brooches with green glass facetted stones for their abdomens and thoraxes make me chuckle every time I see them. They are joined by a chain and so can be positioned differently every time they are worn. They are made by a company called Mizpah; I haven’t been able to find out anything about this company so far. I think they date from the 1950s but they might be earlier. (Okay, I know spiders aren’t insects, they’re arthropods, but humour me in lumping them in with their six-legged friends). The bigger spider is ginormous – a full 69 mm (2 3/4 inches) across!

Two spider brooches joined by a safety chain. For sale in my Etsy shop. (NOW SOLD).

I also have a more modern beetle brooch, bejewelled with green rhinestones. He’s another behemoth of the insect world—he’s 58 mm (2 1/4 inches) long, not quite up to the size of Daddy Longlegs above but giving him a run for his money!

Vintage jewelled beetle brooch. For sale in my Etsy shop. (NOW SOLD)

I bought him because I love the colours. Green beetles always make me think of the amazing dress made for the famous actress Ellen Terry, when she played Lady Macbeth: goodness knows how many thousand green beetle carapaces were sewn on to the dress. The stunning painting by John Singer Sargent of Ellen Terry wearing the dress is in the Tate Gallery in London.

Ellen Terry as Lady Macbeth, by John Singer Sargent, 1889.

The dress itself is on display at Terry’s house, Smallhythe Place in Kent, under the stewardship of the National Trust.

My third piece is a gorgeous fluttery butterfly which has settled on a silver ring: blue and green guilloche enamel decorates the wings, and the two antennae bend back towards the body.

Vintage guilloche enamel and silver butterfly ring. For sale in my Etsy shop. (NOW SOLD).

The ring is not marked with a maker but it is similar to Scandinavian examples so I wonder if that region might be its homeland. (I had a pair of enamel butterfly earrings by Norwegian silversmith Hroar Prydz, but unsurprisingly they sold pretty quickly—they were absolutely gorgeous!)

Hroar Prydz enamel butterfly earrings. Sold in my Etsy shop. Sorry ladies! (NOW SOLD).

UPDATE 19 August 2014:

I now have a beautiful small Hroar Prydz butterfly brooch for sale in my shop:

Horar Prydz small utterfly brooch, silver, vermeil and guilloche enamel, 1950s, for sale in my Etsy shop.

Hroar Prydz small butterfly brooch, silver, vermeil and guilloche enamel, 1950s, for sale in my Etsy shop. (NOW SOLD).

UPDATE 26 August 2014:

I’ve gone bug crazy! I have another insect brooch in my shop now, a lovely little sterling silver and turquoise insect brooch. I think it might be from the US – Southwestern/Native American/Navajo jewellery. Wherever it comes from, it’s a buzzy delight!

Sterling silver and turquoise insect brooch, for sale in my Etsy shop. (NOW SOLD).

Raptors in and around our village

Jul29

The night before last I was awake between 3 and 5 am (I know that much as I heard the village church clock strike 3, then 4, then 5 … Oh the joys of insomnia!) and just before 4 am a tawny owl (Strix aluco) perched up very close to our cottage and started its call.

Tawny owl (Strix aluco). Photo by Martin Mecnarowski.

As it has been so hot recently all our windows are wide open, so it sounded like it was almost on top of us: I think it might have been in our neighbour’s alder tree. Anyhow, after a few initial single screechy ‘ooh-eee’ calls (can’t think how to describe them better), it started up with its regular ‘Hoo hoo-hoo-hoo-hoo’ call, the one that we in the UK often call ‘twit-twooo’. (This BBC video starts with the ‘twit-twoo’ and ends up with a screechy one, if you were curious to know what my pathetic attempts at owl call transcription actually sound like).

Within a couple of minutes a second, distant tawny owl was responding, setting up a nice duet. And then a third joined in, somewhere between the other two—not as loud as the first but louder than the second. And he sounded like he had a bad case of sore throat: his croaky calls didn’t add much to the melody. The three of them sang to each other (or more realistically, disputed territories vocally) for about ten minutes, and then, as abruptly as it had started, it stopped. I still didn’t get to sleep though.

Tawny owl chicks. Photo by Artur Mikołajewski.

Tawny owl chicks. Cute overload! Photo by Artur Mikołajewski.

I have a real fascination for raptors of all kinds. We are lucky to have various kinds living in and flying over our village. We frequently see buzzards (Buteo buteo) and occasionally sparrowhawks (Accipiter nisus) flying over—the sparrowhawks hunt quite low over our garden and I have had some amazingly close encounters.

Buzzard (common buzzard, Buteo buteo). Photo by Arend.

Sparrowhawk (Accipiter nisus) in flight, seen from underneath. Photo by Christian Knoch.

Most exciting of all are the red kites (Milvus milvus) that we have started seeing in the last four years or so.

Red kite (Milvus milvus). This stunning bird has a two metre wingspan. Photo by Thomas Kraft.

These magnificent birds used to be common in the UK—so common that they used to scavenge for scraps on the street of medieval London—but were so relentlessly persecuted over the centuries that their numbers dwindled to a handful of breeding birds in mid Wales by early 1900s. Reintroductions using European birds started in Wales and a little later in the Chiltern Hills in the UK, followed by other projects around the country, and these have been a great success: the red kite population is increasing and their distribution across the UK is spreading.

We waited and waited for our first sighting round these parts. A friend told us he had seen one in Dorset. Then in February 2006 great excitement when Chap saw one circling over an ‘A’ road about three miles from here. But the day were were hoping for—seeing a red kite over our own village here in south-west Wiltshire—finally came on 19 April 2010. That was a red letter day indeed for our nature diary. Since then we have seen them regularly—so regularly in fact that we hope they are breeding nearby, rather than just passing through.

We once were lucky enough to see a kite and a buzzard flying in the same thermal, and we were able to compare sizes: the buzzard is a big bird, but next to the kite it was dwarfed.

Welsh Kite Trust website

Royal Society for the Protection of Bird (RSPB) website

British Trust for Ornithology (BTO) website

A mystery tile

Jul27

Even though our cottage and garden are both pretty small, all in all we have eight neighbours with whom we share a boundary—but the reason for that is for another day’s post (hint: medieval burgages and later coaching inns). There is a low stone wall between us and one of our neighbours’ houses.

The mystery tile. The old breaks are a dirty dark grey; the modern ones bright greyish white. I don’t think it’s Iznik – Indian, maybe?

One day, many years ago, I noticed a lovely old tile sitting on top of the wall—one edge was broken and missing, and the glaze was dinked in a couple of places, but generally it wasn’t in too bad condition. What really grabbed me about it were the colours, turquoises and cobalt blues, and they reminded me of the colours of the Iznik tiles I had seen on the walls in the various ancient mosques I had visited in the Middle East. I didn’t think much more about it. Our neighbour’s kids used to play on the wall and I assumed they had put it there. The next time I saw it was about a year later. It had fallen to the ground on our side of the garden and had broken into about six pieces. I mentioned it to our neighbour and she said ‘Oh that old thing, I don’t want it, chuck it away.’

Angled view from the front, showing the bumpy textured section of the central flower spike.

Well, being a lover of old things and an inveterate hoarder, I could do no such thing. I gathered up all the fragments I could find, washed them, and stuck them back together with HMG glue (beloved of archaeological finds officers across the nation). A few pieces were missing and despite a thorough search I never found them.

I would love to know more about the tile. It measures about 220 mm (8 3/4 inches) square and about 16 mm (7/10 inch) thick, with slightly bevelled edges. The clay from which it is made is a greyish white in colour. There are fingerprints on the backside—you can run your four fingers down where the tile maker smoothed out the clay into the mould. The glaze is very glassy/vitreous. I don’t think it is an Iznik tile as all the ones I have seen have flowing, curving, sinuous plants and foliage, whereas the ones on this tile are quite geometric and angular. I wonder if it might be Indian?

The back of the tile, with the four parallel finger marks running horizontally across from the bottom right corner, from when the maker was smearing and pressing down the clay into the square mould. The darker grey circular marks (there would originally have been nine of them) are presumably something to do with the loading of the tiles in the kiln for firing. Anyhow—if anyone has any ideas about the identification of this tile, I’d love to know.

Goat Island Iced Tea

Jul25

As it is a blazing hot day, yet again, I thought a cooling drink might be in order … Be warned, it is boozy. Very boozy.

In 2008 Chap and I had a wonderful six-week holiday in New Zealand. We stayed with my family in Wellington, and then did a tour around North Island in a campervan (nicknamed The Nostromo by us).

We both adore swimming and snorkelling, so a visit to the marine reserve at Goat Island (properly titled the Cape Rodney-Okakari Point Marine Reserve) was a must.

The beach at Goat Island marine reserve, with Goat Island in the distance. Photo by Inglenookery.

There is a lovely camping spot nearby, and we spent a couple of days there. The weather was not too clement, and the sea was very choppy and visibility was not too good, and on top of that the fish stayed away. One evening during that stay we walked from the campsite to a great restaurant: Leigh Sawmill Cafe. Before the meal I had the most moreish aperitif, Goat Island Iced Tea, a cocktail made with five (!) white spirits: vermouth, gin, white rum, tequila and Cointreau, topped up with ginger ale. The food was delicious, and the wine list introduced us to Hyperion Syrah (we liked it so much we later visited the vineyard at Matakana and bought a couple of cases). Needless to say, we staggered back to the campsite—luckily most of it was downhill.

We loved Goat Island so much that we visited again during our trip, and stayed at the same campsite. The sun shone for us on our second visit, and the snorkelling was amazing. As there is no fishing allowed in the area—commercial or of any kind at all—the fish are incredibly numerous, both in species and numbers. They are also bold and unafraid. We swam with groupers and rays and blue mau mau (also called blue cod, Parapercis colias). We dined and drank again at the Sawmill. Again, I had the Goat Island Iced Tea. Again, we rolled home. Happy days.

Blue maumau at Goat Island marine reserve.

Blue mau mau (Parapercis colias) at Goat Island marine reserve. Photo by Inglenookery.

I tried to get the recipe from the barman but quite understandably he wasn’t about to give away his trade secrets. I knew the ingredients from the description in the wine list, so I decided to try to recreate it back in Blighty. This isn’t a bad approximation:

Goat Island Iced Tea

50 ml vermouth

50 ml gin

50 ml white rum (such as Bacardi)

50 ml tequila

50 ml Cointreau

50 ml fresh lime juice or a good glug of lime cordial (I like Rose’s)

500 ml dry ginger ale (not ginger beer—that makes the drink too sweet)

Mix in a jug. Serve in tall glasses with lots of ice. I bung in some lime wedges and/or mint leaves too. Enjoy!

Favourite websites: iknowwhereyourcatlives.com

Jul24

Oh lordy. Now I am going to get drawn into the wormhole of Catblivion.

Catblivion. You are powerless to resist.

A new website called iknowwhereyourcatlives.com features over a million cats, located Google Earth-style to their actual locations. The site’s maker Owen Mundy, an art professor at Florida State University, has taken photos of cats that have been uploaded on to photo sharing websites such as Flickr, Twitpic and Instagram, and used the metadata on these photos (which includes the latitude and longitude of where the photos were taken) to create this cat cyberstalker’s heaven.

There’s also a ‘random cat’ button. The very first one I got was a tiger in the City of Des Moines Blank Park Zoo. Too cool! He’s lying in snow and he looks like he’s got conjunctivitis in one eye. See, I’m already fretting about teh kittehs.

The second was of a lovely ?Bengal cat who lives in Finland.

And now I’m fretting even more—this is also a catnapper’s little black book with knobs on. But maybe I’m just a cynical old bag. Time to click random cat again and de-stress. Kitteh in Gold Coast Australia helps …

Kitteh in the Gold Coast, Australia.

They also have a Kickstarter to get funds to cover the web hosting for the first year. So far it’s on $775 of a $2,500 target; that’s 16 days left to meet the target.

Seals, turtles and artificial reefs

Jul23

An interesting article was published on the BBC website a couple of days ago about a study into how seals in the North Sea are foraging around offshore wind farms. I don’t suppose it is any great surprise to the marine biologists that this is happening, as the wind turbine bases act as artificial reefs, and the seals are attracted to the fish and crabs and other tasty snacks that are attracted to the reef-like environment that offers them shelter and food. But thanks to GPS trackers, the seals’ movements can be closely monitored and have provided a grid-like pattern that echoes that of the wind farm.

The GPS track pattern made by a Harbour seal () around a wind farm.

The GPS track pattern made by a Harbour seal (Phoca vitulina) around an offshore wind farm.

The study looked at the movements of harbour or common seals (Phoca vitulina) and grey seals (Halichoerus grypus). Some of the harbour seals repeatedly visited the wind farms, Sheringham Shoal in UK waters, off the north Norfolk coast, and Alpha Ventus in German waters.

Sheringham Shoal wind farm. Here there be sea monsters (okay, seals). Photo by Mike Page.

This little news snippet reminded me of a charming video I saw on YouTube a couple of years ago. Here’s a turtle meeting a commercial diver who was doing some checks or maintenance work at an oil rig in Thailand:

So cool! I love that the diver interacts so nicely with it, after the initial ‘What the ***!’ moment and shove when he realises there’s a turtle breathing down his neck. Aw, turtle just wants to hang out and be friends. I’m not sure what species it is—possibly a Hawksbill turtle (Eretmochelys imbricata).

Abstract of the seal article published in Current Biology.

Sun dog days

Jul15

Today has been a beautiful sunny summer’s day, with fluffy white clouds bumbling by all day. This evening we decided to enjoy the last of the sun’s heat in the garden with a bottle of Chenin blanc and some olives. The sky was clearer, bluer, with the occasional mares’ tails were high in the sky. The house martins and occasional swallows (and two swifts—a rare sighting round here) were zooming overhead.

And that’s when we saw a beautiful arc of a rainbow, high in the sky and directly over the sun, but curved back against it. I thought it was a sun dog, but a quick google has revealed that it was a circumzenithal arc, as it was inverted, rather than bending around the sun. I was so excited I snapped lots of photos and ran over to our neighbours’ cottage to tell them, but they were out. But looking at the sun from their cottage, the rainbow looked different—shorter and stubbier. It wasn’t until I got back to our garden that I realised that the shorter stubbier one was something different, on the same level as and to the right of the sun: a right side sun dog. We hadn’t noticed it initially from our garden because of all the foliage of the trees and shrubs.

Circumzenithal arc west of Salisbury, Wiltshire, 15 July 2014, 6.35 pm. The sun is just below the bottom edge of the photo.

So exciting! We love weird or unusual weather phenomena. The last I can remember seeing were our first (and so far only) mammatus clouds when we were in New Zealand.

We watched the arc and sun dog for about a half hour, from 6.30ish onwards, and then they gradually disappeared. There were lots of cirrus clouds (mares’ tails) around at the time, and it is the refraction of light through the ice crystals in these very high clouds (typically 5,000 m (16,000 feet) in temperate zones) that cause this atmospheric effect. A strange weather days first for us!

Cirrus clouds (mares’ tails) above our village, evening of 15 July 2014, at the same time the circumzenithal arc and sun dog were visible elsewhere in the sky.

I took a couple of short videos. The second shows the sun dog as well as the circumzenithal arc:

This post has reminded me that I must get round to joining the Cloud Appreciation Society.

Peacock wrangling

Jul15

There is a sweet BBC news item this morning about the peacocks at Kirby Hall in Northamptonshire who are looking for love—apparently there aren’t enough peahens to go around and so “the lovelorn birds have been displaying their tail feathers to park benches, bins and squirrels in an attempt to find a mate.”

Peacock in display. Photo by N A Nazeer.

Peacock displaying. Photo by N A Nazeer.

It reminded me of the time I was working for the National Trust at Avebury in the mid 90s, as Archaeologist/Warden. There were peacocks in the grounds of the Manor House there, including a spectacular white peacock, who was even more stunning when he was displaying. The peacocks and peahens lived wild, and roosted at night in the trees. One of the males had been attacked, we thought by a fox, and needed veterinary attention. So Chris Gingell (the Estate Manager) and I managed to get this beautiful bird, full tail feathers and all, into the back of one of the Trust’s Subaru pickups (it was an enclosed one) and drive it to the vets in Devizes. The entire staff crammed into the consultation room to watch, as it was the first (and I imagine still the only) time a peacock had been brought in—and he was looking particularly impressive as he was in full feather at the time. It turned out he hadn’t been too badly injured at all and he went on to make a full recovery.

Avebury Manor, now sadly peacockless. Photo by Chris Collard.

Avebury Manor, south elevation. Photo by Brian Robert Marshall.

A few years later, after I’d left the Trust’s employ at Avebury to become self-employed, I heard on the morning news on Radio 4 that the villagers were trying to get the Trust to get rid of the peacocks, as they were wandering into neighbouring gardens and wrecking the flowers and their loud calls were an annoyance to some people. It wasn’t really national newsworthy, apart from the fact that they interviewed the grand old man of broadcasting and peacock-disliker Ludovic Kennedy. He and his wife Moira Shearer lived in the village and I think he might have been calling in some favours from his media chums in an attempt to pressurise the Trust into binning the birds. The birds duly went, leaving Avebury a much quieter but less colourful place.

So that’s one of the more interesting things I could put on my cv: peacock wrangler.

Jewellery: Taking inspiration from nature

Jul10

Throughout the ages, people have adorned themselves. Jewellery might be a marker of status and/or wealth (think of a queen’s crown, or a mayor’s chain, or a rapper’s bling), but mostly it serves the simple purpose of beautification.

And where better to find inspiration than the beauty of nature? Flowers unsurprisingly provide a rich seam for jewellery makers.

When I was on my first archaeological excavation outside the UK, in north-eastern Greece, I was able to visit the archaeological museum at Thessaloniki. There I was wowed by the sumptuous golden wreaths or diadems made of gold oak leaves, or olive leaves—often with flowers and even golden bees attached. But the most striking of all for me was the wreath found in the Tomb of Philip II of Macedon (the father of Alexander the Great) at Vergina, dating from the late 4th century BC and composed of a mass of myrtle leaves and flowers.

Wreath of gold myrtle leaves and flowers, found in the tomb of Philip II of Macedon at Vergina, Greece.

The Mughals in India were well-known for their showy jewellery, often on a floral theme:

Turban ornament, India or Pakistan, early 18th century, set with rubies, emeralds, pale beryls and diamonds. Photo: V&A Museum.

Flower rings, in the form of baskets or giardinetti (‘little gardens’) were popular at around the same time in Europe (in the Georgian period in the UK):

‘Giardinetti’ ring of gold and silver with rubies, emeralds and diamonds, English, 1730-1760. Photo: V&A Museum.

‘Giardinetti’ ring of gold and silver with rubies and diamonds, English, 1730-1760. Photo: V&A Museum.

Flowers were very popular with Arts and Crafts jewellers of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, who saw themselves as part of a ‘back to basics’ and ‘back to nature’ movement:

Brooch by Edith Linnell, with silver, tourmaline, citrine and moonstone. Sold by Tadema Gallery.

Papyrus bloom brooch by Edith Linnell, in silver, tourmaline, citrine and moonstone. Sold by Tadema Gallery.

The absolute master of floral jewellery was perhaps René Lalique (1860-1945).

Rene Lalique corsage ornament in opal, enamel, glass and gold, with a willow catkins motif, c. 1904.

René Lalique corsage ornament in opal, enamel, glass and gold, with a willow catkins motif, c. 1904.

René Lalique plaque de cou with a thistle motif, in enamel and diamonds.

Unsurprisingly, in the light of the ubiquity of floral motifs in jewellery, I have some flower jewellery in my Etsy shop (not quite as grand as the examples above, but lovely nonetheless) …

I have pansies:

Pansy earrings in silver.

and fuchsias:

A fuschsia engraved on a glass, bakelite and white metal dress clip.

A fuschsia engraved on a glass, plastic and white metal dress clip. (NOW SOLD).

and thistles:

Thistle brooch by Charles Horner, silver with amethyst glass.

Thistle brooch by Charles Horner, silver and amethyst glass. (NOW SOLD).

Thistle brooch by Charles Horner, silver and citrine glass. (NOW SOLD).

and lotuses:

Lotus dress clip, in mother of pearl and white metal. (NOW SOLD).

and daisies:

Anton Michelsen daisy brooch, one of four pieces of Danish daisy jewellery for sale at Inglenookery. (NOW SOLD).

Baltic amber and sterling silver ring, by Niels Erik From of Denmark, adorned with a couple of daisy-like flowers. (NOW SOLD).

as well as other more generalised flowers:

Jasper and silver Arts and crafts ring. (NOW SOLD).

Brooch in the style of Bernard Instone, with rose quartz and silver.

Italian micromosaic brooch. (NOW SOLD).

and other pieces with foliage designs.

Oh bugger.

Jul9

After Mark Cavendish crashing out at the very end of Stage 1, today comes the equally sad news that Chris Froome has withdrawn from the Tour de France after crashing twice on today’s Stage 5. There goes Team Sky’s chance of winning the Tour for the third year in a row for the UK.

Poor old Froomey getting into the team car after crashing for the second time. He looks pretty banged up.

Oh well, the cycling will still be fantastic and the scenery wonderful. Allons-y!