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.

Robin eating the fat balls

Its been a rather wet and windy day and so I did not put any of the mealworm on the bird feeder station as they would easily blow away.

Surprised today to see a robin (who visits for the mealworm), eating fat balls form the dispenser, balancing on a adjacent branch

Common Frogs Return

After the pond froze yesterday I was really surprised to wake up this morning to a pond full of writhing frogs.

Too many to count at the moment as they dive at the slightest twitch of the curtain, but we often get 30 -40 frogs a year.


Many of these frogs have travelled from outside of our garden.

This one was crossing the pavement outside our house and open its way to our front gate.

Occasionally they pair up even before the reach the pond (which is in our back garden) such as this pair

Any I find on the way to the pond I give a helping hand and will be keeping an eye out over the next few days. Last year I found a couple of frogs who had not managed to reach the pond and died - so I now give them a hand

Frozen frog spawn

I looked out the window this morning and noticed that the pond had frozen over.

This could be disastrous for the frog spawn in the pond that was laid in my pond 8th February when the weather was mild as the spawn can be affected by cold weather.

The layer of ice forms covering the surface of the spawn could cause the upper layer of eggs to die. However it is a big clump of eggs and those in the middle and bottom of the spawn may survive.


Frog spawn development slows down when its cold so I will have to wait and see what occurs. In March, frogs from further afield will usually visit my pond and so there will probably be lots more spawn to look forward to.

Frog spawn

Frogs have been noticeable in our garden since Christmas - croaking has been heard on and off since Christmas day.

Today I noticed the first clump of frog spawn in our garden pond. There are also several frogs. We have had a very mild winter so far.

These early frogs are probably frogs that live in our garden all year. Later, we may have as many as 35 frogs as other visit our garden from further afield.

Railway Land Live 2016

Apologies for the low number of wildlife observations posted for 2015, which usually focus on my garden and the surrounding area.
I have been heavily involved in a fantastic project called Railway Land Live based on the Lewes Railway Land Nature Reserve in East Sussex.

 

As part of the project we installed 4 webcams in the reserve, two above water and two underwater - streaming live images. The cams captured some amazing wildlife from grass snake and newt courtship to tench, heron and we also followed a family of moorhen.

As apart of the project we worked with local schools I also write regular updates on sightings for the website.

You can still see library clips and lots of other information on the website from 2016.


The project was funded by Heritage Lottery and the project has now started its second (and final in regards to funding) year.

We only have two of the live cams (because of essential winter maintenance) working at the moment but we will soon have all four cams working.


So while there might not be as many sightings reported on this weblog - there will be lots of exciting stuff to see through the Railway Land Live website. http://www.railwaylandlive.org/

Christmas Frogs

The sound of  a couple of croaking frogs in my garden, probably underneath the decking, near our pond.