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The early inhabitants of our garden

We live on the edge of the Wiltshire downs, and these days, apart from birds and creepy crawlies (you can tell I'm not a biologist), the living things we see out there are mostly rabbits (the photo was taken a few days ago, from the window), occasional foxes and very occasional badgers.

However, this chalk escarpment was, of course, once under water, and when we had to dig rather a long way into the chalk some while ago it was difficult to move for fossils of ancient sea creatures. Unfortunately, being chalk, many of them were broken, but I wanted to share a couple of the best preserved.

I'm not sure if I like the sense of continuity, or I'm slightly unnerved by the idea of these things swimming around outside my study window...
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Comments

  1. cromercrox16 July 2009 at 22:52

    Your garden wasn't really your garden when the ammonites lived there, was it? I know it seems pedantic, but this very problem was raised during the following anecdote, told me by a teacher who had been taking a party of small children to a sandstone quarry in Sussex where dinosaur remains had been found.

    "Here, children," said the teacher, "was where they found the Iguanodon."

    "Please Sir," quoth a voice from the back, "how did it get through the gate?"

    ReplyDelete
  2. Brian Clegg17 July 2009 at 10:46

    I like to think of my ownership rippling back through an eddy in the space/time continuum. So, yes, it was my garden. It was just a bit different then.

    ReplyDelete

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