A very flowery Chiswick Police Station. Actually, it’s basically closed, at least as a real station for police and public, but the Hammersmith force camp out in it when they’re in the area. It’s going to be knocked down and redeveloped, but meanwhile, Karen Liebreich (left) of Abundance London (van, sign on the blue platform) has decorated it with a lot of army surplus camouflage scrim and a vast number of little flowers and butterflies … rather nice, I think. BTW the decorations were made by a lot of local artists, some of them presumably famous … if you’re quick you can bid for any of them!
I cycled to Kew, showed my card at the gate, told the cashier how nice it was to be able to arrive without booking (the lockdown booking requirement having finally been dropped), and sauntered across the lawns and through the trees of the quiet autumnal gardens, trying to recall how to distinguish two magnificent ancient tree species, the swamp cypress and the dawn redwood ………
The Gunnersbury Triangle nature reserve this autumn has a new and wonderful nature trail: a series of insects’ faces by Tara Louise Hughes. Tara, when not studying art and illustration, has proven herself a capable conservation volunteer. Now, she has brightened up the reserve for children and adults with her painstakingly fire-etched close-up drawings of insects.
Her damselfly head is a study in miniature detail: the hundreds of pin-point eye-elements (ommatidia) in the insect’s large, forward-facing eyes; the precise distribution and length of the bristles on the top of the head and on the mouthparts; the accurately-observed antennae.
The Stag Beetle head is suitably fearsome, a study in armoured magnificence with interlocking chitin cases for head and thorax, and those extraordinary antler-like mandibles.
The Monarch Butterfly’s head couldn’t be more different: a study of a delicately furry head, a shy eye, and the tenderly coiled proboscis peeping out on the right.
With the Flesh Fly we’re certainly back in scary territory, the rows of stiffly corseted bristles announcing that this insect is ready for action.
The Buff-tailed Bumblebee, a mild and welcome presence in the reserve, and in gardens wherever there is a suitable supply of flowers. The furry insect seems shy under the artist’s gaze.
If not evil, the Red Wood Ant is definitely fierce and single-minded, as anyone who’s ever been bitten by one can testify. Tara’s fire-etching has brilliantly captured that take-no-prisoners energy with the insect’s smooth bullet head, businesslike antennae, and efficiently-hinged jaws. Take a careful look at those scorched textures at the top of its head.
Tara’s Tortoise Beetle shows the distinctly tortoise-like carapace from the underside, its knobbly texture skilfully burnt into the wood, the little head jutting out under the curved rim with the antennae cautiously feeling the outside world for possible danger.
This enormous wood-rotting (saprophytic) fungus, Meripilus giganteus, is a relatively soft bracket, and it grows very quickly. It is the fruiting body of the fungus; the rest of it consists of little feeding tubes (hyphae) in the dead wood of the treestump, which was a Hornbeam, a hardwood. The discs are attached to short stalks, and are concentrically patterned, with tiny scales over the top surface. The underside is a mass of holes or pores, hence the name; each one is the opening of a little tube where the spores grow. Millions of them fall out and blow away; presumably one or two will find a suitable treestump to grow on.
