dead sloworm

Hera (our cat) is still confined to the house, which she has been for 2 days now. However this morning I noticed another dead slowworm in the garden on the path. As she has been confined to the house, maybe I have been wrong in blaming her for all the previous injured or dead slowworms!

Injured cat and great tit

Yesterday, our Cat Hera received a nasty bite to her ear which has become infected. Following a trip to the vet for a check over and antibiotics, she returned home with collar to prevent her from scratching it. This will mean the slowworms and other wildlife in the garden should have a reprieve.

Hera is an unusual cat with some very strange behaviours. She brought up solely as a house cat by her previous owners so she prowled her internal territory, hunted spiders and woodlice and never came face to face with another cat. This lack of contact with other cats has been part of her downfall and confronts trouble head on rather than retreating. I think she has missed out on learning the social skill so of cat society. This is also the route of her invertebrate catching skills. She will blow a spider from its web or from beneath a window sill to eat it. She can leap and catch a fly in mid air or use her cupped paws to catch one against the window.

Today, when the wind and dropped and the weather turned to an intermittent drizzle, a great tit flew into the garden foraging for insects.


It checked out the foliage growing up the side of the shed and then search beneath the gutters before flying down to check out the cracks in a low wall. The pictures are not brilliant quality as they were taken through the window and there was a lot of light reflection.




It hung for a while from the underside of our window sill before flying back out the way it came.

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.

Mating snails

While hanging the washing out I noticed these two snails mating in one of my newly planted window boxes.
I moved them to the window sill to take this picture and then took them for a walk down the back alley to find them a better place to lay their eggs than my window box.

Swifts

There are now 4 swifts flying around this morning. As often the case, I heard them screaming past the house, which attracted my attention to them. I look forward to watching their nesting progress this year

Damselfly larvae, spider and leaf cutter bee nest

I decided to clear out some of the pond weed as the pond has become quite overgrown. It won't be long before the damselflies emerge and lay their eggs on the weed and I will have to leave it.

To be as sure as possible that I don't accidentally take out any pond creatures in the weed, I remove small pieces of weed at a time and put them into an old washing up bowl. I check them for creatures, usually they swim off when put in the bowl. Afterwards I put the weed in a bucket of water so I can check it again later.


In the process I found a large number of damselfly larvae which I carefully returned to the pond.


I notice one red damselfly in the garden, possibly from my pond.

I also cleaned out the old window boxes to plant the remaining violas to brighten the place up.

This beautiful spider was living in a web tunnel behind one of the window boxes. I am sure I have seen it before but can't place the species at the moment.

While replacing some of the old soil in the window box I found an old leaf cutter bees nest. The bees make a nest tunnel and then cut leaves to create individual cells.

We have leaf cutter bees in our garden every year and they are fascinating to watch.

slowworm

The first slowworm I have seen in the garden this year and sadly it needed to be rescued from our cat.