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Graham Bell won a first prize at his club - the Sidcup Lapidary and Mineral Society with a
chalcotricite he collected from Hingston Downs Quarry on our September 2008 mineral collecting week.
I rang him up to ask about it and he said he was breaking rock coated with poor scorodite and it was inside.
I've also been chatting to Martin Stolworthy and had a look at the web sites he runs - the British Micromount Society
and the Norfolk Mineral and Lapidary Society
web pages. He has given them a revamp and the sites are very clean looking and easy to use (see links).
On the natural history front in October we were at Wheal Drea near St. Just for mineral collecting, courtesy of the National Trust when
Hazel Ramsey noticed a flower growing in the Cornish
stone hedge by the road near the dump. Steve identified it as Wall Germander - a Red Data Book species.
We have been visiting Windmill farm on the Lizard. This site is managed for dragonflies and damsel flies.
There appears to be a semi-resident Marsh Harrier as well. Our best sighting there I think was early in the year when on a lovely
sunny day we saw a female Broad Bodied Chaser egg laying - she glowed golden in the sun as she constantly dipped her rear end into
the water laying her eggs on weed. Needless to say this was a challenging time for the phtotgraphers as she moved very quickly.
Breney Common had its fair share of dragons and damsels as well. On the pond dipping front there this year we had a lot of newts in various stages of
growth from young to easily identifiable mature males. Steve and Sue and Tom Walker saw a grass snake at Ellenglaze on the September walking week.
it was also a good year for bush crickets including a couple of sightings of the Dark Bush Cricket.
And then there was the kingfisher at the Wadebridge car park by the Camel trail which follows the old railway line between Bodmin and Padstow.
This was on our October walking week with Pat and Peter Hewitt.
We had been watching a kingfisher on the river while we had lunch. I got some rubbish photos. Then I nipped off down the railway track
and just beyond a bridge is a wooded incline - a nice private place for a call of nature. So I crept down
this bank - I had my camera with me - well you never know - so I am relieving nature - when in the bushes in front
of me appear some long tailed tits. I aiming at them with the camera still in the crouched position as I didn't want to stand up
and frighten them away. Somewhat hampered by my trousers which I hadn't had time to pull up I
sort of wobbled sideways and out of the corner of my eye saw the kingfisher not six feet away from me perching on a stick in a little meander of the river.
I jumped - it flew. And I nearly fell down the bank.
Finally just to say from myself and Steve 'Wishing you all what you would wish for yourselves in 2009'.
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