Wood pigeon, hummingbird hawk moth and slow worm

Have suspected for sometime that wood pigeon are nesting in the tree that overhangs our garden. The last couple of days I have heard the almost pathetic cries of two young wood pigeons being feed by an adult. I say young, they are almost as pig as the parent and slight differences in the beak and plumage distinguish them.

Common urban birds, because they are more settled in towns etc, often give us a peak at a larger part of their lives than the less common species.

A hummingbird hawk moth again visited the red valerian growing from our flint wall. It was quite windy and the moth did not stay around for long. A red admiral butterfly also passed through the garden, but did not settle.

For the last few weeks we have had a couple of bags of wood chips laying on our front lawn, waiting to be put on the garden boarders. I was concerned that they may be damaging the grass beneath so decided to move them. As I lifted up the first bag I noticed a smallish slow worm (legless lizard) curled up underneath.

I checked the second bag, but found nothing except squashed grass.

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.

Slowworm, damselflies, crow

A hot sunny day so I st up my laptop on the garden table to work. I noticed our cat hunting on the steps near the rockery. I assumed she was hunting a spider or some insect. After a while she came doen the steps with what I thought was a big earthworm in her mouth. It took a few seconds to realise that she had caught a slowworm. She dropped it at the bottom of the steps and I quickly grabbed the slowworm up to get it away from her. Our cat (Hera) frantically looked for the slowworm not realsing I had it. When she eventually lost interest I released the slowworm on the rockery.

It was a day of rescuing as I had to rescue two separate damselflies from our conservatory. Once hey enetered itsreally hardto get them out again. With these two I resorted to carefully catching them in my hands and releasing them outside.

For the second day in a row, a carrion crow brought dried bread and put it in the bird bath and then flew away. About 5 minutes later the crow would eturn to feed on the bread which was now very soft. The crow appears to be nesting about 2 hundred memtres away in trees on the other side of the valled road.