Slowworm courtship in our garden today, observed the male grab the females head in his jaws as part of courtship.
The male can be a silvery grey as in the one I saw today. We see very young and juvenile slowworms in our garden as well as adults and have assumed mating took place in our garden, but the first time I have caught them in the act.
Red mason solitary bees are busy visiting the bee hotel in our garden. The female is creating cells in which she will deposit an egg, provision with pollen supplies and the seal up the cells which will provide next years generation.
The Cacoxenus fly will lay several eggs in the cell who's larvae will consume the store intended for the mason bee larva.
The five-spot club antennae wasp also invades red mason bee nests.
There appear to be more in my garden this year. Bee hotels are great but large ones can attract a large proportion of your local solitary bee population in one place and if there are parasitic wasps and flies around this can be a big problem as this can increase the number of broods that get affected. In recent years I have changed to using only small bee hotels and placed them far apart in my garden, front and back, to reduce this problem
In my post 4th June I spoke about the plants that I had grown in my green house and have been planted into the 9 long window boxes in the front of the house and numerous small ones out the back. These plants are now third generation as I collect the seeds each year and plant the following year.
The first plants have finished flowering and the next lot are flowering. Its also lovely to see the various bees, hoverflies and butterflies taking advantage of the blooms.
We spotted this fox having a go at a carrier bag across the road. Turns out the content was leather handbags that had been put out for charity collection.
The fox managed to pull out a strap which it struggled to carry across the road.
These are one of my favourite solitary bee visitors to my garden, hairy footed bees Anthophora plumipes. These are one of the first solitary bees to emerge and frequently visit our comfrey, rosemary and flowering current.
The males are a rusty brown colour and appear later.
Observed a demoiselle damselfly several times today in our garden, sadly no photo. Large red damselflies visit our pond each year.
Its been a long time since my last post, instead have been sharing through my other social media.
I thought it was time I returned to my blog, much of which is a documentation of the ecology in my garden and surrounding area, which I started in 2007. The blog was originally set up to encourage people and schools to explore there own local patch using my small urban garden as an inspiration. Following covid, many more people have discovered the delight of wildlife watching in their garden and so this seems the perfect time to pick up where I left off.
Three years ago during I covid I had more time than ever to grow stuff in the green house. Especially a variety of plants for insect pollinators, as we have 9 long window boxes on the front of our bungalow. I collected the seeds and replanted them and had an even better spread the second year.
The seeds I collected from these plants last year that grown well in the greenhouse and replanted into the window boxes.
