Fabrics from yesterday’s Verrall Supper. Now in its 139th year. Dipterist George Verrall used to pay for all his guests, over 300 in the early 20th century. They probably all wore wing collars and frock coats. Now you can more or less wear what you like, but you have to pay for yourself.
Migratory ladybird, Harmonia axyridis on the 185 to Victoria.
Water skater, and reflection of the photographer.
You can’t beat a chalk hill figure and an archaeological dig in a model village. Bekonscot. Just fab.
Wallace and Gromit went to the moon in a rocket that was not held together by rivets — kitchen cupboard lentils were just the right size. Young V&A, formerly the Bethnel Green Museum of Childhood.
Actually. I’m going to commission a knitted waistcoat in that pattern. Right now.
You’ve obviously just knitted that.
Probably late 2026 or 2027.
Started in 2023 I have today sent 100,000 words and 342 illustrations on woodlice to the publishers. I will now have a cup of tea and some ginger nuts.
Hornets, wasps and maggots. Anyone fancy organizing an entomological field trip to Dante’s Vestibule of Hell? What with the constant supply of evil souls hateful to god and his enemies it’s probably a thriving ecosystem down there.
A question for ecologists. Or linguists. If sylvicole species live in woods, sabulicoles live in sand, cavernicoles live underground, synanthropes live near human habitations, and calcicoles haunt chalk and limestone, is there a similar word for organisms of acid soils?
It's a little known fact, but librarians often try to slip a finger, thumb or wrist portrait into the photocopying you've requested. It's a kind of challenge puzzle for future historians.
Yes agreed. Book louse. Or in this case magazine louse. Not many found on books these days unless your library is truly mouldering. We have a different species in the kitchen feeds on spilled food wherever I have failed to maintain suitable levels of hygiene.
Word of the day: marish, slightly archaic form of marsh. The dying swan, Tennyson, 1830. According to Merriam Webster pronounced to rhyme with perish, but my ear wants to hear a longer and deeper perhaps West Country burr, that rhymes with parish, or bar-ish.
The eleven rings of colour also featured in Tolkien’s unpublished children’s game version.
Ooh! Advance copies of Buzz just arrived. Smug face for the rest of the day. Publication May 2026.
Word of the day: grike — a crack or fissure between blocks in limestone pavement. You’re welcome.
The wisdom of the world is written down in books — knowledge and culture and history. Each time I open a book I think of its previous owners. In this case it was David Holditch, one of the book’s editors. Maybe 40 years from now another signature will decorate the fly leaf.
Serious linguistic question. If, in the interests of science, you tear the wings off a fly, is it un-winged or de-winged? Asking for a friend. X
Ah, I think you’re right. Much more muted than the male I found recently.
Great-looking beast — Phasia hemiptera, a parasitoid of shieldbugs. Near Buxted, in the Sussex Weald, d Ed here I used to see it regularly when I lived in Sussex.
The entomologist at work. Or play. Geotrupes stercorosus.
The definition of shimmying — ruby tiger caterpillar, Phragmatobia fuliginosa.
Seems crazy late in the year for mating hoverflies. Sericomyia silentis, High Hurstwood, near Buxted, Sussex. Not a species I see often.
Striped Shieldbug on Hemlock stem
Two Striped Shieldbugs on Hemlock stem.
Spotted underside of Striped Shieldbug hiding behind nettle stem.
Hogweed patch beside path, metal fence and trees in background.
Managed to find four Striped Shieldbugs (Graphosoma italicum) on Hogweed in the north east corner of Cornmill Meadows today. #LeeValleyWildlife #EssexWildlife #UKBugs
I’ll be there.
Butterfly display fire screen, 19th century by London taxidermist Henry Burton. Almost all the colours have faded, except for the Brimstone. Russell-Cotes gallery and museum, Bournemouth.
Anyone know what is a gooseberry bottle? Ingpen, A. 1839. Instructions for collecting, rearing, and preserving British and foreign insects.
Word of the day: pandal — a cold-water prawn. Samouelle, G., 1826, General directions for collecting a preserving exotic insects and Crustacea, designed for the use of residents in foreign countries, travellers, and gentlemen going abroad. You’re welcome.
Everything must go. By Thursday.
