Toft Churchyard Lichens

Today's post definitely a preliminary look at what is growing on the walls and gravestones in our village church. They were very difficult to photograph handheld in not very good light. I will try again with some type of lighting to get sharper images for ID, The summary image at the end shows the IDs that various apps suggested - further shoots and comparisons of images should confirm or not these first attempts and then to check with other sources.

Vases and Vessels

I got a bit obsessed with the various ancient pottery in the Fitzwilliam Museum and photographed several of the wonderfully inventive and elegant shapes as double exposures using the wall or floor to add texture. Here are 8 of them with a tryptic of three of the most colourful to start.. 

Fitzwilliam Museum Cambridge

 As the weather forecast was for continuous heavy rain, we changed our plans and visited the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge instead. Jane wanted to see the Made in Ancient Egypt Exhibition but I had plans for a session trying various techniques to depict the modern architecture of the museum. David Roberts was commissioned to design an annexe alongside the main museum in 1973 which contained new gallery space and an accessible entrance.

The first 5 images are single exposures - the blue and yellow tones are from daylight and artificial lights; not sure where the purple has come from on the spiral staircase. The second set of 6 images are double exposures done in camera

Lichens and Collembolids in Toft 1

Delighted to find these two different species of Collembolid in my photo when I downloaded it - I had wondered what all the dark spots were - now resolved as the faeces of these two different species of Collembolid (Dicyrtoma fusca and  Dicyrtomina saundersi on Xanthoria parientina). These were photographed during a walk to the church and back. Species suggestions mainly tentative at this stage!!! I do like the appropriately named Asterisk Lichen - 3rd image.. 

 

Early Spring at Cambridge Botanic Gardens

 The Snowdrops, Aconites, Hellebores and even Daffodils are in bloom in the University Botanic Gardens in Cambridge - unusually early.