Oxford Natural History museum

Millions of years ago dinosaurs were the wildlife in my local patch. 

A visit to Oxford's Natural History Museum clearly shows where dinosaurs roamed.

At some points in time my patch was underwater and sometimes on very marshy land.

Over the past couple of centuries people have discovered bones that show dinosaurs used to live where we live now. 

Camptosaurus

The Camptosaurus was a herbovrie, plant eater, that was 20 feet high and could wak on it two back legs but mostly on all fours.
The red dot shows where it was found in oxford.

Cretaceous

                   The Megalosaurus was a giant meat eater that would of lived around Oxford.
Stegosaurus bones have been found in Woodeaton and Cetiosaurus bones in Chipping Norton.

                                       

 Around 110 million years ago my local patch was swallow sea.

This tooth shows that Pliosaurus swam around in my local patch

During our visit to the museum Ben from bensbirdsandbeastlybugs.blogspot.co.uk/ 

and I went to look at the Wildlife photographer of the year exhibition. There were some amazing photos.

A day by the river

Yesterday was a sunny day with temperatures around 26 degrees, just perfect for swimming in the river.
As I swam upstream the Swallows flittered downstream tring to catch helpless flies on the waters surface.

As we walk down past the lock we saw three swans, two adults and one cygnet. Unfortunately one of the adults swans had a fishing hook in it's neck. It didn't seem distressed and was eating but when we got home we reported it to the RSPCA.

Swan with a fishing hook in it's neck

 Future downstream we could hear high pitched calling above us. I managed to get this photo of the Peregrine Falcon. It's not very clear.

Peregrine falcon

 Dragonflies, damselflies and Beautiful Demoiselle's perched and fluttered along the riverbank like fairies.

Beautiful Demoiselle

The rooks from our local rookery seem to congregate down by the river, on the wires and in the field.

Weekend in Devon

This weekend we went to Babbacombe in Devon to snorkel and run the British Sub Aqua Club's Beachsnapper course. 

Babbacombe beach is down a very steep, winding road but as we turned the corner near the bottom we were faced with a perfectly shaped cove, pebbly beach and water sparkling off the water. I couldn't wait to get started.

During the day we learnt how to hold the cameras, about composition, zooming in and out and taking photos under water.

The 5 children on the course then had a go at taking photos of landscapes, textures and scenes. My mum taught us to use shadows and reflections to make a good photo.

Here are a few photos that the 5 of us took, so not all the photos are by me.

Snorkelling and taking photos

Spotting crabs

Trying to take photos of fish, but they move too fast

All of us taking photos

Whilst out snorkelling we saw Crabs, Blennys and lots of different types of seaweed.

Here are a couple of my favourites 

Blenny 

Different textures of seaweed

On Sunday we visited Millpond, Stoke Gabriel, where they sometimes have wild Otters and Seals. 

It was competely different from the busy beach the day before.

 When we got there it was just turning high tide so we could not get to where the Otters and Seals are seen. 

Although we did see fish, swans, ducks, seagulls, shellduck and Little Egrets. 

Me and a seagull flying by

Egyptian geese

Big butterfly count

Today we did the big butterfly count in our back garden.

https://www.bigbutterflycount.org

We spent 15 minutes watching and counting the butterflies.

We counted 9 Peacock butterflies, I Brimstone, 3 Small Tortoiseshell and 1 Comma.

Comma

Small Tortoiseshell

Brimstone

Peacock

Later on we went for a walk around the field and woods next to my house and we saw lots of different types of butterfly

Large White

Meadow brown ??

Large White

Gatekeeper

Gatekeeper

Peacock

Speckled wood

This was one of the best places, here we saw lots of white butterflies and Brimstones out in the open.
Along the hedgerow there were Peacocks, Meadow Browns, Gatekeepers and Small skippers.