If you saw my last blog post, you will probably have seen my mention that we have recently had a few unsettling things to contend with here, and these were already in process during the week that this report refers to. Because of this and, and one other factor that I shall mention later in this post, I have been somewhat less attentive to what is going on in the garden. This will, therefore, be a relatively brief blog post.
Monday, 22nd June.
The greatest excitement this day was the appearance of a male Siskin in the garden. This is not a rare bird, but in my experience, it is most unusual to see them in these parts at this time of year. We usually get a few pass through in late winter but, unusually, we had not seen one this year - until this day. There were two other reports of sighting in the county that day also, so I do not know what was behind this situation. The bird did not stay long and I only managed a record shot of it on one of our feeders.
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| Siskin (Carduelis spinus) (male) - garden on 22/06/2020 |
The Sparrowhawk visited, but was not photographed, bringing our total of bird species for the day up to 16.
I did take some shots of a couple of other items that day.
The Small Tortoiseshell is the most frequent butterfly species in the garden at the moment, and so you get yet another shot of this colourful butterfly!
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| Small Tortoiseshell (Aglais urticae) - garden on 22/06/2020 |
I know virtually nothing about spiders, and cannot find anything on line that remotely resembles this next one. As it was extremely small, I'm wondering if it was a spiderling, rather than a fully grown spider - hence the absence of similar on the Naturespot web site.
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| spider sp. - garden on 22/06/2020 |
Tuesday, 23rd June
A totally unremarkable day other than that we had our first positive sighting of a Red Admiral butterfly in the garden while we were having lunch in the conservatory.
Wednesday, 24th June
Another day with not much observed in the garden (only 10 species of bird), but this was probably because Lindsay and I went out into the countryside for a picnic lunch in the company of a Little Owl, to celebrate our 48th wedding anniversary! More on that in the next blog post.
Thursday, 25th June
A day with too many distractions, with the Gas Co. and the Water Co. both working on our property. I managed to escape for a couple of hours and visit a local dragonfly hotspot.
That evening I had my study window open as it was sweltering hot, and found this small, but rather elegant, moth had come into the room.
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| Small Dusty Wave (Idaea seriata) - from my study on 25/06/2020 |
Friday, 26th June
Hedgehog had been visiting on a daily basis, and Fox had visited on all but one day of the week. Checking the trail cams that morning witnessed both Hedgehog and Fox getting along just fine together.
I was delighted to see the return of a young Nuthatch as, after visiting on a daily basis for a while, it had been absent all week (or we had missed it, which is a distinct possibility!).
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| Nuthatch (Sitta europaea) - garden on 26/06/2020 |
While having lunch, Lindsay noticed something scurrying beside her. It turned out to be a rove beetle of a species which I think is not very common in these parts, judging by the reaction I got when I posted a picture on Twitter! It is quite colourful for a beetle. Sadly, it disappeared into an inaccessible place before I could get a decent photo, so you get this one that serves as a reminder to me that I should do some dusting!
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| rove beetle (Platydracus stercorarius) - conservatory on 26/06/2020 |
As we were getting ready for bed that night, a moth started flying around. This got put in the fridge overnight, for photographing the next day. The Silver Y moth is a common species which can be seen flying in the daytime. It is a migratory species which arrives in UK, usually in good numbers, each summer.
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| Silver Y (Autographa gamma) - from bedroom on 26/06/2020 |
Saturday, 27th June
We had a quite good count of birds visiting us that day (16 species) with Nuthatch, Stock Dove, and Sparrowhawk providing the highlights. We seem to have done extremely well with young birds in the garden this year, with juveniles tending to outnumber the adults. We have, I believe, two 'resident' juvenile Dunnock.
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| Dunnock (Prunella modularis) (juvenile) - garden on 27/06/2020 |
Sunday, 28th June
The trail cams revealed one short, but disappointing, clip of the Fox entering our garden carrying prey. My first glimpse, on fast playback. had me worried that it might have been a hoglet (baby Hedgehog). However, I think that it was probably a bird - I suspect a Blackbird.
I spent a little time that day photographing hoverflies in the garden. I don'y want you to think that I've got totally hooked on hoverflies, at the expense of other interests, but I do find these insects fascinating, and having been given a field guide on them I'm wanting to learn more - and while I'm at it I'll apologise for three banner headers in succession featuring hoverflies. The truth is that I've struggled to find suitable alternatives taken within the scope of the blog post subjects.
The field guide is excellent and I'm slowly working my way through it, so my ID skills on these are still extremely basic. Please let me know if I'm on the wrong track with any of these. One thing I have learned is that, in order to stand the best chance of a correct ID, one needs close photographs from as many different angles as possible.
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| Platycheirus sp. - garden on 28/06/2020 |
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| Scaeva pyrastri - garden on 28/06/2020 |
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| Marmalade Fly (Episyrphus balteatus) - garden on 28/06/2020 |
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| Eupeodes corollae - garden on 28/06/2020 |
In summary (weekly maxima in brackets):-
We observed 3 species of mammal visit : Hedgehog (1) ; Red Fox (1) ; Grey Squirrel (1)
We observed 2 species of butterfly visit : Small Tortoiseshell (1) ; Red Admiral (1)
We observed 18 species of bird visit : Blackbird (3) ; Bullfinch
(3) ; Chaffinch (3) ; Dove, Collared (3) ; Dove, Stock (1) ; Dunnock
(2) ; Goldfinch (3) ; Greenfinch (1) ; Magpie (1) ; Nuthatch (1) ;
Robin (1) ; Siskin (1) ; Sparrow, House (7) ; Sparrowhawk (1) Starling (4) ; Tit, Blue (2) ; Tit, Great (1) ; Woodpigeon (4).
My next blog post will probably be on Sunday and primarily feature dragons and damsels. Until
then, take care and stay safe.
