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The crab sat unmoving for over an hour in the shade of a three inch high mud cliff, stirring only when the sun rose sufficiently to pierce his shadowy retreat.

The over wintering Peacock butterfly laid its eggs on the upper leaves of the stinging nettles at 50˚47’10.29″ N x 1˚24’26.60″ W and they are all now hatching. The caterpillars eat on the leaves through five stages of growth, moulting their … Continue reading →

In marking a mooring post with the motif of the Egg, I hope to make new homes for solitary wasps and other singular creatures in need of a secure place to abide, long after the Egg has moved on.

I made an eye in the bow of the Egg by drilling a three inch hole through the sandwich of red cedar and epoxy forming its shell, providing the potential for discreet observation. Early yesterday morning five black headed gulls picked … Continue reading →

The great tits I filmed so intensively feeding their young inside a hollow concrete brick in the ruined Bofors Gun Pit, have now flown; the hatchings fledged and the nest abandoned until next year. I decided to take a look and … Continue reading →

This afternoon I hung the window shade for the first time this year to keep out the sun’s heat and two swallows flew into the newly darkened interior. They sat on a shelf under the window for a few moments … Continue reading →

A pair of great tits nested in the cracked and broken concrete of the derelict bofors gun emplacement. They spent many hours, in an unending hunt for caterpillars, hover flies and other bugs to feed their clutch of eight demanding young. … Continue reading →

The nettle tops continue to harbour lots of different creatures, from the ladybirds already described to spiders, resting hover flies, bees and caterpillars (so far only evidenced by their eggs and eaten leaves). There are many earwigs too.

Many ladybirds were nestling in the nettle tops yesterday morning, including a pair of the scarlet and black seven spot sort.

The swallows were a welcome sight last night as a trio of new arrivals dipped and darted low across the pasture of my neighbouring field looking for food. I yelled the news up the hill to my neighbour Nick, who later … Continue reading →

I thought the tea made in a dim pre dawn moment this morning had an unusual taste. A mid morning brew shed new light on the situation.

The Ceremonial Beadle Chain of Office.

The incredibly hot lid of the heater spun from gloved hand to the floor, where it instantly branded a fragment of carpet with a dark and dirty sun, ‘like a bad half-crown in a basin of soap and water’.* I … Continue reading →

For the last three or four days bumble bees have been frequenting the marsh and fields beside the Egg. They are in and out of the mouse holes on the riverbank where they may be seeking shelter from the newly … Continue reading →

I stumbled out of bed at one am yesterday to view the moon. After a sudden lurch of the Egg to starboard I reached out in the dark to steady myself and crunched into a large vitrine of ethanol and … Continue reading →

There have been many attempts to visualise a system of the animals which in the nineteenth century tended to depict a ‘Great Chain of Being’ with people perched at the top of a tree of life. Zoologist Georg Goldfuss in … Continue reading →

The crescent of a waning moon reached out to Venus with open arms this morning, lit bright in light from a sun still lingering below the horizon and reflected in the calm water of a falling tide. The ‘two-horned queen … Continue reading →

My friend Boris is a young Norfolk Terrier who lives with neighbours Nick and Caroline and he has been a regular visitor to the Egg since attending its arrival at Exbury early in May last year. Late one night in … Continue reading →