A lovely weekend

Saturday 5 September

Excellent weather so still some butterflies around on the fermenting pears. Most of the wind falls are pounced on by the wasps so I have decided to leave them out and see what arrives to feed. Zillions of wasps but also good numbers of butterflies.

This Red Admiral having a good feed, and then a bit of sunbathing

And here a Comma has come to a full stop ....................

And also in the garden it has been a mega year for Hornets. This time in the garden luckily, and not inside so no need to be nasty with the nest. Adults were coming to the fermenting fruit regularly. Their actual nest is high up in one of the Pine trees in the front garden.

Not forgetting the birds of course and plenty of fledged young and adults coming to the feeders , this Blue Tit stayed for the camera. 

The second brood of Swallows finally fledged, so that makes a total of twelves birds successfully hatched and flown. The adults and some young are still around though numbers are reducing every day as the ready for the trip to sub Saharan Africa.

Further down the road, hopefully not waiting for my young Swallows, this Kestrel, sat around on a telegraph pole.

Slippery goings on.......

Sunday 2 August 2009

During an afternoon BBQ this fella decided to join us, but not for long as he decided to leg it, so to speak, up the wall.

Brief encounter...

July 2009
So while I was away in Poland watching White tailed Eagles, Barred Warblers, Shrikes and much more, I was also very excited to get good views of this particular mammal ( photo below-beaver) as it went about it's daily business....

And excited I was, as before, I'd only managed brief views but this year, possibly due to the flooding, I was lucky to see them on several occasions. However not as lucky as Sam who had an amazing encounter with another mammal in our back garden. I received an excited phone call from her to say she'd seen three large animals in the drainage ditch, half wriggling and swimming along, the size of cats with dark fur and arched backs and long tails- they were Otters !!

I tentatively suggested they may be rats to be told, if they were at that size, then we were moving ! It was just sour grapes on my behalf. Otter sighting have been increasing in the County, but this clearly is the rarest sighting for our garden.

Gord..love a duck....

Tuesday 23 June 2009 - evening

and I think I do....because while munching on those wonderful strawberries I saw a movement in the field at the back of the garden. It was a Mallard with a bunch of chicks waddling their way to the field pond. Must get this for the blog I thought, so grabbed the camera and went in pursuit ( sounds impressive but just to the edge of the garden). Watching from there I saw nothing, until suddenly across the middle of the field about thirty foot in the air, and going like a bat out of hell a Peregrine zapped past. I watched incredulously (mentally adding it to my garden list) as it disappeared and then heard the piercing call of a Kingfisher. And, it was in the tree by the side of me ! slowly turning round I could see a blue blob at the back of the Willow but just couldn't get a good view. A few seconds later, another piercing call and it was gone. My heart was thumping, but luckily there were just a few strawberries left.

And all because the lady was a duck......

One out....all out

Tuesday 23 June 2009

It was the morning for fledging as all five of the garage nesting Swallow chicks left the nest, first onto the rafters and then into the air. They are spending quite a bit of time still in the garage then occasionally exploding out and flying round as though they know what they are doing. Amazing to think by September time they will be on their way to Africa.

and while not really wildlife as they are cultivated, and I guess dead when I picked them, it is a site for ramblings......and therefore my first bowl of garden strawberries, picked this evening. Actually are they dead as the seeds are still there ? and if a seed is a living thing (is it?)then perhaps they are still alive. Hmmmm  more ramblings...and more cream and more sugar..

Mr Larva larva....

Sunday 23 June 2009

Yes... during another pond dipping session Tom found this fantastic Great Diving Beetle larvae. This is one of the most ferocious animals of our pond, they eat Tadpoles (much to Tom's disgust) and will take small fish such as Sticklebacks. (see photo of adult in older posts of this blog). Till then Tom was happily holding it in the palm of his hand while transferring it to the tank. I still remember being bitten by one of these when I was a young pond dipper. With four children dipping away many more Tadpoles were found, in addition to numerous Dragonfly and Damselfly larvae, a freshwater Leech and loads of Water Snails.

and Siskins had been calling from Rob and Emma's garden (next door) during sunday, so it was nice to see them later in my garden

A great little hummer....

Sunday 21 June 2009

Amidst a hectic morning of pond dipping with Tom I heard a buzzing noise past my ear and a Humming Bird Hawk Moth zipped by. I tracked it down to the Valerium flowers. Great little moths these and this one probably a migrant from southern Europe. The wings beat at some ridiculous frequency so I found this really difficult to photograph, pushing the ISO to 2500 in order to stop it just being a blur....

Folklore has them down as messengers of good tidings in Italy and Malta. A small swarm was reported flying over the water in the English Channel, headed to England from France on D-Day 1944 - but let's not get excited it was just a coincidence.