Peacock butterfly

The first peacock butterfly in my garden this year. It was actively flying around before I manage to get his photo as it rested on a bag of garden rubbish (waiting to be recycled).

Peacock butterflies hibernate in the winter. They hibernate because of a lack of food (flowering plants also become dormant) and warmth, butterflies are cold blooded.

When the butterflies are dormant, their bodies use very little energy.

Juvenile slow worm

The pavement outside out garden had become quite overgrown with grass and other vegetation. 

I decided to clear the pavement and to my surprise found a very small slow worm curled up in one of the small clumps of grass I pulled up.

 

I carefully placed the clump of grass plus slow worm into a overgrown corner of the garden. My wife found a juvenile slow worm in the garden a few days ago and adult slow worms turn up every now and again.

Whitethroat

The whitethroat is a medium sized warbler about the size of a great tit. The whitethroat arrives in the UK from Africa about mid-April and returns in October.

 This is the first time I have seen a whitethroat in my garden. I was doing some gardening when I was attached by the movement in one of the bushes.

I think its a male as it does appear to have a tinge of grey but it could be a female.

The whitethroat actively searched for insects flicking and darting in usual warbler movements and even dropping from one branch onto a lower one.

At one point the warbler dropped to the ground and searched in the undergrowth beneath the bushes.


Lovely looking bird.

The whitethroat population crashed by about 70% between the 1968 and 1969 breeding season due to drought in the whitethroat's wintering grounds in Western Sahel (an area of Savannah south of the Sahara).

Since then their numbers have slowly been recovering, but this is worrying when you consider the changes in global climate. Species that migrate to the UK may be affected but climate changes while in their wintering grounds impacting on the number of birds that migrate to the UK to breed.

And of course they may also be affected by changes in climate and weather while they are in the UK.

Hairy footed bees

With the increase in sunny weather  have noticed increased activity from the hairy footed bees Anthophora plumipes that visit one particular plant oin our garden near the pond - Margerie fish. I have noticed a female for a few weeks joined just recently by another female. A male bee has also strated to visit. I have only seen the two females and one male at the plant at one time, so  am assuming there is only one male at the moment.

Female showing long feeding probosis

The sexes are easy to tell apart the female is completely black and the male is mainly brown.

                                         Female on the margerie fish

Male hairy footed bee

Hairy footed bees are fast fliers and one of the eraliest solitary bees to be seen in my garden. They are also quite territorial chasing away rivals and any other bees, including quite large bumble bees, that try to visit the plant.

Male hairy footed bees also have a a white face

Hairy footed bees are facsinating to watch. The nests are built in the ground or in the mortar of old walls. Hairy footed bees are present imy garden every year, but I have never discovered their nest site. Unlike the leaf cutterbees that collect leaf materila and nest in our garden later in the year.

speckled wood

I noticed this Speckled wood butterfly which appeared to be drinking from the pond. I have seen butterflies gathered around a puddle and also feeding from over-ripe fruit.

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.

Blackbird nest building

The blackbirds are still nest building and visiting the gutter on our conservatory for materials. This morning I manged to get a good view of them from behind an evergreen tree.

What I found particularly interesting was that although the female collected all the materials the male seemed to stand on guard.

He would appear first and remain in a tree nearby. A minute or so later the female arrived, rooting around any collecting moss and other debris. As soon as she flew off, the male followed.

In between trips, I manged to get out into the shed outside and look through the window, which gave me a good close up view.