Tag: Dog

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Image of the day – 167

What’s in an image? Sometimes quite a lot, more than meets the eye. I’m posting an image every few days.

Orchids produce such beautiful flowers, often in great abundance, and they last for months if protected from too much heat and strong sun. This lovely, white Phalaenopsis flowers every year for us, but this year it had a bad plague of scale insect on the backs of the petals and on the leaves.

Scale insects are not hard to deal with as they can be wiped off with a soft tissue moistened with methylated spirit. Or even just wiped away gently with your finger. But you have to be persistent because you need to remove all the adults and then keep on removing the smaller insects until you have broken their reproductive cycle.

Orchids grow wild here in the UK, they’re not as showy as many of the tropical ones, and the flowers are far smaller, but they are still beautiful plants. Some orchids have flowers that mimic insects such as bees, butterflies, and flies. The insects are attracted to the flowers, and sometimes even attempt to mate with them; they act as pollinators, spreading the orchid pollen from one flower to another and so helping the orchid produce viable seed.

See also:

• Orchid – Wikipedia
• Wild orchid photo gallery – First Nature
• Wild orchids back from the brink – Kew Gardens, Grow Wild

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Pasqueflower

Meadow cranesbill

Fallen Rhododendron flowers

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Image of the day – 166

What’s in an image? Sometimes quite a lot, more than meets the eye. I’m posting an image every few days.

Here’s a five-year-old photo of my brother-in-law Paul’s dog, one of a pair of black Labradors, lovely, soppy, friendly creatures. This one is Marple, I think, though it’s hard to tell them apart without seeing both at the same time – if not Marple, she is Maizi.

Like all dogs, Marple and Maizi spend a lot of time asleep. They sleep at night of course, just like we do; but they also sleep after meals, after walks, and any time they fancy during the day. Apart from doing what they are told they have no responsibilities, no chores, no planning or organising, but plenty of time to rest. And like all carnivores, they mostly want to find something to eat and then rest until hunger pangs set in again. It’s a dog’s life!

Now five years older, at 14-years-old, they sleep even more than before.

Paul and his wife Vanessa live in Weston-super-Mare, a seaside town with a wonderfully long and wide beach and some fine woodland on a hill. Needless to say, Marple and Maizi have always loved visiting both the beach and the woodland. And it’s in those environments that I’ve seen some of the special closeness of interaction between human and dog; the throw, chase, catch, bring back, drop process for example, redone over and over and over again!

The close interaction between people and dogs developed a very long time ago, in his book, ‘Sapiens’, Yuval Noah Harari writes:

We have incontrovertible evidence of domesticated dogs from about 15,000 years ago. They may have joined the human pack thousands of years earlier. Dogs were used for hunting and fighting, and as an alarm system against wild beasts and human intruders. With the passing of generations, the two species co-evolved to communicate well with each other. Dogs that were most attentive to the needs and feelings of their human companions got extra care and food, and were more likely to survive.

Labradors possibly take this cooperative union further than almost any other breed. The bond between dog and owner can be really close. It’s been my privilege to see that very clearly with Paul, his wife Vanessa, and their dogs Maizi and Marple.

See also:

• Book review – Management Learning, 2015
• Labrador Retriever – Kennel CLub, The
• Labrador Retriever – Wikipedia
• Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind – Official website
• Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind – Wikipedia

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Useful? Interesting?

If you enjoyed this or found it useful, please like, comment, and share below. My material is free to reuse (see conditions), but a coffee is always welcome!

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Knightstone Causeway

Wall art in Weston

Groups and group size