More additions to the garden list this Spring includes red mason bee and holly blue becomes the 7th species of butterfly this year. No less than 3 hedgehogs turned up one night. Breeding birds thriving. Tadpoles growing at a rapid rate.
Earlier this year we put out a small bug/bee hotel and it wasnt long before we saw a small bee heading into one of the bamboo holes. Then at the weekend a bright orange bee appeared to be digging in a bare patch of earth. Sure enough after a short while it headed off back to the bee hotel. A little bit of research on google proved that it was a red mason bee. Apparrently common in the Uk but neverless a very much welcome addition to the garden.
A pristine holly blue spent most of the afternoon in the garden on Sunday. It looked very fresh almost as though it may have hatched earlier in the day and was letting the sun dry out its wings.
The trailcam turned up a surprise when firstly 3 then (fleetingly) 3 hedgehogs appeared. I’m no expert but it is my guessthat one was a female, the other her partner and the third an amorous opportunist in search of some hedgehog fun!
It has been great watching the amount of house sparrows growing almost by the day. There has been as many as 12 in the garden and with no apparrent signs of any young ones just yet it looks like our local population is doing very well. They have been feeding on small insects around the pink campion flowers and I can only surmise that they are gathering these insects to feed their young. Hopefully should get some photos later ion the week if the weather improves. It was interesting to see a starling bring out three quarters of an eggshell the other day. It was eating part of the shell so no doubt removing the shell to deter predators but benefitting from the calcium from the eggshell to boot.
Not that I am complaining about a little bit of rain-it will do the garden the world of good. Been topping the pond up with tap water (letting it stand for a few days to let chlorine out) always better to have natural rain water though. Our tadpoles have grown quickly and they are moving much faster. Still around 40 in our small pond so nice to see that they haven’t been predated.
Until next time…
