Cheryl

Hello Twitter/X, whatever you are now, it's been a while. I've lost both my parents and my husband (@stoneleper) since my last post so it's been a truly devastating time. I will try and blow the dust off the moth trap before the end of the year, if I can face it...

@BrambleBotanist Two other things I don’t like: 1. Why watch it on the TV, when you can just look out of the window? and 2. Spring happens mostly in March & April, it’s largely finished by the end of May!

Is it just me or who can’t stand Springwatch? Totally missing the real issues in our countryside. Surely there’s a space for discussing actual ecology, daily trashing of nature or imminent literal end of the world. Or at least something, anything, without fins, fluff or feathers.

@erikatanith Thank you for the link - that’s fascinating - had never appreciated how variable they are! We watched her disentangling a white beam leaf that had fallen into her web

@NoseInTheDirt Looks like it. There's a lot of variation in their colouring dependent on the environment, but I'd put money on her being araneus diademantus: spiderspotter.com/en/info/for-sc…

Hello Twitter, is this Araneus diadematus? Looks subtly different to me, but don’t have a field guide to hand. Found in my parents’ Warwickshire garden

@GlenOrioleglen Yes, it was a bit scary - thankfully @imaginature dealt with most of them!

@NoseInTheDirt Blimey, that’s a record I’d sure not want to beat, Cheryl!

62 hornets in the moth trap this morning - nearly everybody else was Large Yellow Underwing… 🤷‍♀️

@HSBC_UK another one here who can’t get access to mobile banking this morning. Disappointing, since I transferred my account to you after >20 years at @bankwithsmile because they couldn’t deliver a consistent service either. Exasperated.