Rain, Bugs, Birds and a Snake.

September 17^th A new week, a new day, and I had a plan for today. Plan number one was a particular countryside walk; plan number two was the landfill walk. Either would have worked, it’s been a while since we went to either place. However, my brain rebelled. Lost in my early morning slumbers I was enjoying my dreams so much that I did not want to wake from them. I vividly remember thinking that if I didn’t wake up and leave my dream we would not be early enough for either of those walks. The dream won and I stayed there too long!

We still had a countryside walk, just not as long a one as I had planned for. It was also one that gave us quite a few photos today. The first opportunity came as we were crossing the bridge to Little Island, two pretty little birds. It looks like they spotted us too.

Huan then found a tiny little furry thing.

Her finger then went crazy trying to get me to see a squirrel leaping all over the place somewhere in the trees in front of us. I did manage to catch one that at least shows the little fellow.

She then had me pointing the camera down into the bushes.

She was on form today, within minutes she had found her first lizard of the day.

We are lucky in that we live just minutes away from the countryside. We left home at twenty past nine and the shots for this panorama were taken just before ten. Huan was on the path, I was on the side of the irrigation ditch. We both commented on how quiet and pleasant it was. There were sounds of course, but not city sounds.

I think I had the better view.

It was also my turn to spot the dragonflies. Yes, there are two; they are not the same one. I like the illusion of the first one having its wings on one side being much longer than the ones on the other side. I think the second one was just preparing to take off.

The second lizard of the day was also one that I saw. In fact Huan thought I would not get a photo of it. Perseverance and some manual focus got me there.

This little butterfly also needed a bit of manual focus and quite a lot of shots.

Huan had to get the last word, or two in. Here is one that she calls an ‘ugly lizard’.

As we near our house I always have the phone in hand to countdown the metres. I am very fussy and don’t like stopping the app unless it is either on a ‘decimal whole’ or a ‘decimal 0.5’ number. Something like .13 for example is not allowed! Today the leader had me pocketing my phone so I could take the camera out again for one last shot. It was a good one though.

As usual, naps were needed after lunch. Also as usual, at least for the last few days, the rain came in the early evening and stayed for a while. We both think that it is better that than stopping us going out in the daytime.

September 18^th We did it! First I knew I had to escape my dream and wake up, which I did early enough. Then, as planned so many times recently, we set off for a Landfill Mountain walk. Mind you, we did so with some trepidation. Huan’s phone told her that it was already raining, my PC said it would be at eight this evening, the sky gave us very mixed messages. We had already been drizzled on by the time we reached the landfill turn off.

You may notice in that previous photo a little drilling rig in the lower right centre. This is a B&W view from the other side showing someone that looks like a toolpusher in action. If my oil exploration terminology is wrong, please forgive me, I was in communications mostly.

Here’s something we have not seen before. This lizard is having his breakfast, but it is not a little insect that he is eating. Somehow he has managed to catch a dragonfly!

Yet another thing we have not seen before is a butterfly after the pollen. Stay tuned until a little later to find the flower genus.

And now I give you a quote from my post of May 30^th 2022 where we spotted something similar to this next picture. First, the quote – “Some moths (notably members of the Arctiidae family) pupate in a woven basket of the caterpillar's body hairs rather than silk. The cocoon made by the caterpillar is quite remarkable. It is an open square mesh cage, constructed out of larval hairs held together with silk. The hairs are too short to construct the cage directly, so the caterpillar attaches pairs of hairs to each other end to end, and uses these pairs to make the sides of the cage. The pupa is suspended in the middle of the cage, equidistant from the sides. The caterpillar even manages to push its final larval skin outside the mesh cage while forming its pupa. When the moth emerges, it appears to exit the cage without damaging it.” And second today’s photo. Of course Madam found this for me, had I been alone I would never have seen it.

I often cast my mind back to the early days of being in Wuzhishan when all of the ‘false crests’ on this walk really had us in a tizzy. Nowadays it seems much easier, although it still wears us out and we can’t speed up them as we did a couple of years ago.

This next chap was busy repairing his web. He was probably cursing me after we left because I removed the twig and leaf thinking I would be helping.

Soon enough we were at the summit of our walk, ready to begin our downward descent. I got Huan to do a Mary Poppins pose for me. Do you think her phone bag can count as Mary’s black bag? I then took a whole load of photos so that we could have a gif of her too.

Revenge was required so Huan took some photos of me taking photos of the scenery.

This is what I was creating.

I had climbed over a barred bamboo gate to get in a position where the trees were not obstructing my view for that photo. Huan got me climbing out again, trying not to get my shorts caught.

And here I am diligently replacing the top bamboo pole to ‘leave everything as we found it’.

With a lot of the trees being cleared to plant betel nut trees we are able to see more of the forest floor now than we have been able to see in the past. I noticed something scuttling around but couldn’t make it out until we got home. Even now I am not 100% but it appears to be some kind of bee or wasp. Why wasn’t it flying? PS This is a huge crop.

Now earlier on I told you that I would let you know what flower the butterfly was feasting on. Here we found a few, enough to do a Google. The answer is ‘Cheilocostus speciosus’. More info here - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cheilocostus_speciosus

Let’s have a few more birds shall we. These two spotted me from a distance and it almost seemed as though they were calling for the chickens to come home.

Almost home and I spotted three pigeons over a wall on the site of a new building. The first two snaps were probably a bit ordinary, mediocre even.

The third one came out much better, I guess because of the black void behind it.

And there we are, I think we will leave it at that for today. We did get a little lizard outside our door but I’m fairly sure you will have seen him a few times already. Afternoon naps were most definitely on the cards today, Huan said her legs were stiffer than they’ve been for a long time. That was probably due to me getting her to do a ‘Mary Poppins’ for me.

September 19^th Rain stopped sleep! It felt like that to me anyway. I seemed to be awake nearly all night listening to it although it didn’t bother Huan at all. Rain should have stopped play too but SWMBO suggested that we really should go out for a walk. To be fair, the rain did ease off so it only drizzled on us. Photo-opportunities were not really part of our day so all we have to show you is a lot of water. First ‘Little Island’ from the apartment side.

Then there is the force of the water over the impassable ford and also over the footpath.

Luckily for us we did not have to use the ford, the bridge was the better option.

Meanwhile, further upstream, the lido has been filled in again. If you look at the first picture you can see the floodlight that they have been using for night time work. There is also another one in the close up photo, the one that shows how the water level overwhelmed the defences.

Our last photo for today is the river testing torpedo. I’m not sure exactly what it measures but I believe it includes flow rate and quality.

After my terrible sleep last night’ a nap was definitely on the cards. Huan joined me so perhaps she had also been disturbed a little by the rain. All that was left was for me to cook dinner, octopus tentacle noodles. I was too lazy to take photos of it, sorry.

September 20^th We weren’t sure what to do this morning, the forecast was not too bad but the skies looked terrible. I took it upon myself to do some bathroom cleaning thus negating the chances of us going for walkies. Once that job was done Huan sent me to the express delivery boxes to collect something she had ordered. On the way my nose was assailed by a very pleasant scent, as it often is in the same place. Today I thought I should take a photo of it for you. This link will tell you more - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murraya_paniculata

On my way to the express boxes I could feel my skin getting wet, (I was only wearing shorts and a vest). There was no visible rain, maybe it was a cloud! Check the ground, that’s wet too.

Later on though it was different. When the call came from the dining room, “Dinner’s ready!” I took a couple of snaps front and back. The first is the river view, a lot of rain there. The second is the street view, lot of rain there too. You might not be able to see it so well; you’ll just have to take my word for it. The street view, despite being wet, is improving as each day goes by. We can both remember when the trees were planted, just look at them now.

September 21^st I do like it when the say starts with sunshine, so much better than rain. Someone else seemed to like it today as well. I tried not to disturb him too much.

This shot was just to show Huan that even the sky looked good.

Being a Saturday it was markets day of course, yes two markets, not one. Our first market was the one that sells the pre-cooked duck, passing their lotus pond on the way.

By this time my clothes were already quite dirty, not my fault, honest! I had been forced to stop and chat to a few different dogs, some of which were only too happy to jump and get made a fuss of. Unfortunately, they all had dirty feet because of the recent weather. Anyway, I think Huan did not want me seeing the next four legged friends so I had to walk through the back streets!

In the second market, the riverside one, only Huan took a photo, a patient duck on a scale. Is it me or does he look a little sad?

Other people were glad to see the sun again; Tea Street was doing a thriving business today.

And then finally, in the third market, the indoor one, Huan bought another tray of those eggs, you know, the magic ones with two yolks inside. Here’s the lady handing them over after asking if I was America, Canadian, Russian, etc. I told her that like the eggs I had two hearts, one in China and one in the UK!

The rain came back later in the day but we weren’t worried, we were napping again!

September 22^nd Huan had a plan for today, it was another bus and walk plan. In my mind I had modified it but it would still be a bus and walk day. Plans, as always, tend not to work, especially if you don’t use clocks in the bedroom. Huan slept badly and I did too. Perhaps it was my tossing and turning that disturbed her. Anyway, we woke up too late for a bus and walk so a nearby countryside walk would have to do instead. We went passed the KFC building on the way, here’s a bird that escaped the cooker.

We headed down the road to somewhere before turning off towards the river.

Going down the stairs to the riverside walk we met someone coming up. I don’t know who was the most worried, the snake or me! Eventually he disappeared into the undergrowth. I was a little nervous to say the least, there was Huan telling me that it was a dangerous snake at the same time as trying to manoeuvre me into a better position to take photos. There are no photos, but there is a video - https://youtu.be/PkJwuLLNbsg

Huan then went through a long phase of finding tiny little creatures for me so that I could struggle trying to take photos of them.

The next two I found all by myself!

For some odd reason Huan likes this photo, hence its inclusion here.

This next one is just to show you that don’t always have nice hard roads underfoot. As you can clearly see, this would not be a sandal walk!

Little birds don’t seem to mind the mud though. This is very heavily cropped because I couldn’t get any nearer; he had his beady eye on me.

The village cows were in the byre but so was the farmer. He is not very keen on me chatting to them so I just took a photo through the ‘window’.

Chicks got a little closer today, not quite close enough to pick up though.

I think we’ll let this lovely dragonfly be the last one of the day.

And so another day ends, with rain of course. Mind you, we are not complaining if the rain keeps appearing in the afternoon, much better for us.

September 23rd What a washout! The last day of the week was a case of rain stopped play, again. I wouldn’t have minded except that I had set the alarm this morning to make sure Huan could have her ‘bus and walk’ day. The outcome was me watching Hawaii Five-0 all day in the office and Huan watching TV and practicing music in the living room.

That means of course no photos for today. Not to worry, next week we will have something a little different for you. What will that be? Well, you will just have to make sure you read next week’s post, there will be photos and video links. See you then!