Anna

Work for the NHS. Live for myself. Take the odd photo

[ALEXIS ™I ❤️🇷🇼• @dufitalexis1]

This is a ladybird larva. It looks nothing like a ladybird. It looks like a tiny black alligator with orange spots — and most gardeners crush it thinking it's a pest.

That mistake costs the garden dearly. An adult ladybird eats around 50 aphids a day. Its larva can devour up to 500 before it pupates. Ten times as many. That strange-looking creature working its way along your tomato stems is the most effective phase of a ladybird's entire life.

Once you know what to look for, the larva is unmistakable: an elongated blue-black body with six orange spots along the sides, six short legs, slow and methodical movement up and down stems. It doesn't fly, doesn't jump, doesn't hide. It moves from one aphid colony to the next and feeds continuously for two to three weeks before pupating.

The pupa looks like a small, still orange droplet fixed to a leaf — and it too gets removed during routine plant tidying. Inside it, the adult ladybird is forming.

If you find aphids on a plant and ladybird larvae among them, leave them alone. The biological control is already working.

🐞

[Anna @BarneySky]

This 👇

[Sama Hoole @SamaHoole]

On the second Sunday of April, a couple from Birmingham walked the footpath that crosses Brian's fell.

Their dog, a young border collie named Otis, was off the lead.

There were sheep in the field.

Otis went after the sheep.

The owners called Otis. Otis did not return. Otis was, in dog terms, six months into a lifelong relationship with sheep that had, until that moment, consisted entirely of seeing them on television.

Otis chased a small group of younger ewes for approximately eighty metres, which is, in Otis's own assessment, a successful afternoon.

Doris, who was on the section above the wall, observed this.

Doris did not run.

Doris walked, deliberately, at a measured pace, to a position approximately fifteen metres from where Otis was, by then, pursuing the younger ewes in a circle.

Doris stopped.

Doris looked at Otis.

Otis stopped.

There is, in the literature on livestock guarding behaviour, a phenomenon known as the calm interdiction. It does not require aggression. It does not require display. It requires only a confident, settled animal placing itself in the path of the disturbance and refusing, with absolute mildness, to be impressed.

Otis, who had, until that moment, been having the best afternoon of his short life, was suddenly looking at a Texel ewe who was not running.

The category had broken.

Otis sat down.

The owners reached Otis approximately two minutes later. Otis was on the lead by then. The owners apologised, profusely, to Brian, who had walked up from the gate at a measured pace and was holding his stick in the way that people who have not been to agricultural college nevertheless know how to hold sticks.

Brian: "You'll need to keep him on the lead from now on."

Owner: "Yes. Of course. We're so sorry. We didn't think."

Brian: "Most don't."

He could have said more. The law gives him the right to shoot a dog worrying livestock. The literature on stress-induced lambing failure is extensive. The young ewes, by the time Brian reached them, were panting hard enough that Brian made a mental note to check them again in the morning, and to tell the apprentice to do the same.

He didn't say any of this.

He said: "Have a nice walk."

He went back down to the gate.

Doris, by then, was already grazing again.

The young ewes recovered.

The lambing in autumn was unaffected.

British footpaths cross approximately 140,000 miles of farmland. They have done so since some of them were carved by mediaeval cattle. The system depends on dogs being on leads near livestock, on walkers closing gates, on the basic countryside code that takes about four minutes to read and is, somehow, still not being read.

Doris has not read it either.

Doris does not need to.

Doris simply stops, and looks, and the dog stops with her, and the system holds for one more afternoon.

It would be nicer if it didn't have to.

[Anna @BarneySky]

@LikeOldTat I’m originally from Yorkshire and everything was a tea cake as kids

[Anna @BarneySky]

@LikeOldTat It’s a cob

[Anna @BarneySky]

@LikeOldTat Love these reminds me of my smoking grandparents.I still buy them.

[Nottinghamshire Fire and Rescue Service @nottsfire]

🌊 If you get into trouble in the water, remember: FLOAT to Live.

🫁 Fight the urge to panic
😮‍💨 Tilt your head back, keep your mouth clear
🌬️ Spread your arms & legs
🕒 Float until you can control your breathing
📣 Then call for help or swim to safet

[Anna @BarneySky]

@LikeOldTat You always come up with a story of your past and it makes me chuckle. Not a lot you haven’t experienced. Experiences like these are grounding.

[MakeChipsCount to Reunite Pets @VetsGetScanning]

Found dog 💔 Microchip details are out of date, do you recognise him! We need to find his family.

⚠️ FOUND DOG ⚠️

We’ve had a male golden retriever handed into us today at our Caister branch.

‼️ He is microchipped but we believe details aren’t up to date. ‼️

He was found near California crescent in Scratby.

Contact: Caister Vets Rollesby
Martham Rd, #Rollesby, #GreatYarmouth #Norfolk #NR29 5DR

Call: 01493 809766

Email: [email protected]

⚠️PROOF OF OWNERSHIP IS REQUIRED⚠️

FB link: https://t.co/Otw6J9nKWa

#HeartBreaking #LostDog

How sad is this picture 😢

Please check your #dog or #cat microchip registration. Find your pet’s microchip database on the Government’s link:

https://t.co/6BfimEhbB1

#MakeChipsCount #ScanMe #MicrochippingMatters

[Anna @BarneySky]

@NewWaveAndPunk I have a copy of that or should I say my mum does

[leilani dowding 🌸🚜 ☮️ @LeilaniDowding]

Please share, even if you are not a horsey person. Share everywhere. Feel free to save photo and share as your for better reach and exposure

[Anna @BarneySky]

@adeyb67 @NewWaveAndPunk Where did that 45 years go blimey

[Anna @BarneySky]

@dash_beck2 We’ve had new neighbours and they have a terrier and have blocked up the hedgehog hole. Not sure how I feel.

[Hedgehog Cabin @HedgehogCabin]

If anyone knows these boys, who stole a tub of water (labelled "Water for Wildlife, Please Do Not Remove") from the dehydrated desperate wildlife in the Phoenix Green woods on Dilly Lane, Hartley Wintney, at 7pm last night, and stole the small bird's water dish, and destroyed the safety ramp from the tub, please explain to them that this isn't a game.
This water is the difference between life and death to these poor animals.
It broke my heart this morning to watch footage of these desperate animals searching the ground where the life saving water was.
And watching small birds, whose own water dish had been stolen, trying and failing to get to the water left in the tub - seeing it but unable to safely reach it.
Please share this on other social media platforms. Please don't be angry or rude to these children, we all did bad stuff when we were kids.
But they need to understand the consequences of their thoughtless actions.
We must teach kindness and tolerance to animals.

[Anna @BarneySky]

Innocent and simpler times

[archivetvmusings @archivetvmus71]

Here is a box, a musical box, wound up and ready to play. But this box can hide a secret inside, can you guess what is in it today?

[archivetvmusings @archivetvmus71]

Here is a box, a musical box, wound up and ready to play. But this box can hide a secret inside, can you guess what is in it today?

[Anna @BarneySky]

@pete_savin That looks delightful but sounds chewy.

[Anna @BarneySky]

@GenealogyBeech This will be to look for paroxysmal atrial fibrillation. I am sure the treatment you will have been put on will cover you and then possibly adjusted depending on the results. Please don’t worry. Sounds like you are getting good care.

[Anna @BarneySky]

@GenealogyBeech I work in this area. Most of this is auto analysed already using some form of AI. Usually life threatening rhythms are dealt with urgently and not left as you say for 8 weeks. I think you can be rest assured if you were seriously ill it would have been highlighted immediately.

[Anna @BarneySky]

@LikeOldTat @BaxbyHideaway If I’m honest I’ve paid more this year on Arran. Captive audience. But when you can find a good site for£20 a night it makes you wonder. It’s location location location. Enjoy yourselves.