Spring Marches On

April 29, 2020

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…

Garden Update

April 17, 2020

Well the recent sunny weather and rise in temperatures has certainly provoked further life in the garden.

Butterflies have made a most welcome appearance with two Springtome specialities turning up within a couple of days of each other. Firstly only our second ever brimstone flew in briefly settling for seconds and then went on its way. Then a pristine male orange tip only the third ever for the garden. More predictably a few worn peacock and commas, large and small white and a small tortoiseshell.

Bee flies have continued to appear and our bee hotel has got visitors already.

Two hedgehogs on the trail cam gave some promise of another attempt at brreding-only time will tell. Tadpoles continue to thrive in the pond and woodpigeons are probably sat on eggs.

The dawn chorus is reaching its crescendo with robins starting in the pitch black soon to be joined by what sounds like hundreds of blackbirds and then ends with a mixture of house sparrows, wrens and dunnock-something to behold on these Spring mornings.

The warm weather has also brought out some mosquito type flies. Backlit by the evening sunshine they present an interesting and challenging photo opportunity.

Finally for now I have been experimenting with trying to photograph our local bats. There is a narrow window of opportunity from the sun going down (at about 8 pm) and the light disappearing completely at around 8.30. It involves getting a high shutter speed in low light by whacking up the ISO. Not always easy and very much a work in progress. I think there will be a half decent shot to be had if I persevere.

As the weather warms up there is plenty more to look forward to and indeed be thankful for. We wont be locked down forever, there is still a lot to be thankful for and a lot of it is literally right on our doorsteps.