Thursday 7 June 2012

ladybird, ladybird, fly away home

We took a walk on Monday (during a brief respite from the rain).  We wanted to check up on a few things.

On how ‘our’ tadpoles were getting on in their quest to become froglets…..

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(answer; not brilliantly - but is that the start of a back leg I see there?  I’d like to think that maybe it is; certainly they are fatter than they were the last time we visited.)

And we also wanted to see how ‘our’ apples were doing on their journey to become a brand new tree…..

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(answer; distinctly fruit-like now, and although still a bit too small to bite into surely the seeds inside will be coming along nicely!)  But the cherries (which had looked like this…..

last time) provoked whoops of joy.  You can probably guess why!

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Juicy red and fat with seed.  We brought a few windfalls back with us, just to make sure!

Talking about fat with seed, we happened to pause on our way between orchard and pond, beside a stone trough positively pink with prettiness. 

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Busy lizzies they are called.  Aren’t they lovely? 

But look a bit closer and there’s evidence that an insect has done its bit.

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Do you see?  The centre of the flower has started to get fat.  Next the petals will fall off (they’ve done their job, you see, in encouraging the insect to visit) and the ‘fruit’ will get longer and longer as the seeds inside ripen. 

Here’s another one.  Most of the petals have gone.  Can you see how the ‘fruit’ has developed?

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And, rather excitingly, once fully ripe, the pods will explode, firing the seeds far from the ‘mummy’ plant!

But as if that excitement wasn’t enough, on our way to the park, we’d come across what for me at least was a really amazing sight.  A ladybird that had just hatched from its pupa.

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Can you see the empty case just behind her?

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When we came back again, we were a tiny bit disappointed to see that she’d gone; but we decided she’d probably had to fly back home in a bit of a hurry to make sure it hadn’t burnt down in her absence.

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