Hedgehog visitor

I once saw hedgehogs quite frequently in and around my garden but I have not seen one for many year (just the occasional road casualty).

So I was really pleased to see this hedgehog on our front garden last night. It was sitting in the lawn looking towards the house.

My wife took out some cat food and the hedgehog came over a eat some of the cat food before heading off into the over-gown flower border in search of some tasty invertebrates.

Hedgehogs have declined drastically and while the exact reason is unknown intensification of agriculture, roads, pesticides and tidy gardens may all play a part. As with many species declines its often a mixture causes.

Connectivity of habitats is also important, even more so for hedgehogs as they may roam 1-2 km in a single night. Our neighbours have had a hedgehog family in their garden for a while. After 8 weeks the young are left to fend for themselves and this is likely to be one of the young hogs.

If you put food out, hedgehogs tend to visit for a top up and still feed on the natural food - so its not a problem. Avoid fish based catfoods as it can give hedgehogs diarrhoea. You can also add meal worm and other tasty treats as hedgehogs are omnivores. You can also provide a bowl of water as drinking water is often hard to find.

While hedgehogs can swim well, if they fall in a swimming pool or raised pond with no area to climb out, a hedgehog will eventually become exhausted and drown. An untidy overgrown area is also perfect for a hedgehog to visit on its travels.

Dragonflies emerging from our garden pond

A busy day and grabbed a coffee to chill our by our garden pond for a while - just in time to see 3 dragonflies Sympetrum striolatum emerge.

Large red damselflies always emerge from our pond each year and after discovering dragonfly nymphs in the pond for the first time last year - pleased to see adults emerge.

Emerging dragonflies

Dragonflies have started to emerge from our garden pond. There are a lot of dragonfly nymphs this year of varying sizes, some very small and will probably emerge next year.

They climb out of the water, up the marginal vegetation. The skin splits and they emerge as a winged adult, leaving behing the nymph skin (called the exuvia).


The damselflies emerged in a similar way earlier in the year.

Painted ladies

The first Painted Lady Butterflies turned up in my garden today, feeding on the Hebe and Red Valerian.


This amazing butterfly flies across the channel from the continent to the UK, some travel from as far as North Africa. They lay eggs and produce a second generation.

However recent scientific research and tagging has revealed that the second generation of Painted Ladies don't die during the winter as was once thought, but actually make the return journey. This migration is considered to be as spectacular as the famous Monarch butterfly in the USA. 

Ivy Bees

On my way to the shops on Wednesday and I noticed hundreds of solitary bees zig zagging back and forth just above the ground in a front garden. The grass was very closely mowed.

The buzz from the bees was quite loud. I noticed that the bees were also present in three adjacent gardens with similar gardens.

I went home for my camera and took a few pics. I later identified the bees at Ivy bee (confirmed by BWARS - Bees Wasps Ants Recording Society).

These solitary bees have a single flight period, September and possibly as late as November when the weather is warm. This coincides with their preferred pollination source - Ivy.

This bee was first seen in the UK in 2001 (Dorset) and was described as new to science in 1993.

I returned to see if they were still their yesterday and they were just as active. Ivy Bees are mining bees making nest tunnels, in this case, in the soil beneath the lawn.

I checked today and even though it had been raining and quite windy, a few of the bees were still evident

Short video clip below 

https://youtu.be/UYZAf2T91FY