Sunday 10 May 2009

Baby birds and damselflies

I was attracted by a commotion in the tree that overhangs our garden. A cat was up the tree, attracted it seems by the wood pigeons flapping about. While looking up into the higher branches, from below I noticed what appeared to be a couple (at least two) young birds. Pictures below, very blurred due to lack of light and trying to focus up through so many branches. Any ideas?

I found another slow worm left by the back door, probably by our cat. This one seemed relatively unharmed. I put it into a space fish tank to see if it was okay and after 10 minutes it was moving around okay. I carefully released the slow worm into our garden again underneath and bush with thick vegetation.

I made another attempt to clear some of the excess pond weed from the pond before the damselflies start laying eggs on it. While removing weed from the back of the pond, which was also covered in some blanket weed, I came across some tiny damselfly larvae.

They were about 1 cm in length. I returned these to the pond, but found more on the weed. I used the same technique as last time to ensure pond creatures were not accidentally removed from the pond. As with last time I also found over 12 fully grown larvae, which looked close to being ready to emerge from the pond and become winged adults. Later on I noticed this damselfly which had recently emerged from its larval stage.

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