Same face, different amphibian......

Sunday 8 August 2010
Carrying on with the disgusting theme, another poke around the garden produced this ....... no idea why red hair was in that day but it was. Tom is becoming quite adept at catching animals now and this frog stood no chance.

The pond has been attracting quite a bit of wildlife recently and here is a Great Diving Beetle adult, just coming to the surface.

It has the most amazing green head and thorax when seen up close. Smooth wing case means it's a male. A fearsome pond predator and every tadpoles nightmare !

Also finding refuge in the pond was this Grass Snake which stayed for most of the day, though it was difficult to creep up on and would rapidly move away into the aquatic vegetation if it saw movement.

....and here it is, sliding away. Occasionally we would see it's head poke up through the elodea as it waited for it's prey........

it's prey being......hang on a minute....it's prey were my newts !! Red in tooth and tongue I suppose, so I left it to hoover up the pond of any unfortunates...Perhaps it was just cooling down? No not with that face.
In the garage brood number two of the Swallows had just fledged, well most of them, some were still a little reluctant to come out.

Four birds were practicing their first flights but keeping close to the nest.

By the evening all but two were out of the nest and using the roof of the car as their toilet .

Further afield, I encountered this Mole scurrying across a road. It then tried to get down into the earth but had problems burrowing which may be due to the very hard earth where is was. It did manage to disappear but only after about five minutes. And yes this is a live mole not a posed dead one.

While I was trying to get a photo of this a Grey Partridge called in the field next to me so I stuck my camera through the hedged and managed a very quick snap.

The garden has been a heaving mass of young birds feeding away, nothing too unusual though we did have fly overs of Hobby, Sparrowhawk and Buzzard all in the same day. I look forward to late August when a little more time should allow the camera to be swung back properly into action. But for the time being must keep checking the Harvestile Farm Swallows.