So another spring has come and gone and we haven't been on one birding twitch and yet I consider this spring to be one of my most productive natural history springs ever mostly down to flowers and insects and of course our pond and garden. The blog has suffered photographically wise since Wayne got his new camera - the biggest mistake he has ever made and I have told him so! If anyone is thinking of digiscoping with the Panasonic gx8 don't - simply on image quality alone it is rubbish and a simple test against my iPhone was the final straw- so much so that last week Wayne flew off to Sulawesi in search of Wallace's Standardwing and took his old camera and left the new one here for me to sell. However speaking of iPhones the image quality is fantastic and apart from the Israel post and White-billed Diver post every image on here this year has been taken with my iPhone. Anyway back to this spring - our pond has been fantastic the Newts arrived back in December and have had a good breeding season so much so I had to make some egg laying plants for them out of freezer bags!
Other highlights in the garden as follows: Barn Owl hunting back of garden every night, 231 Soprano Pipistrelle Bats emerge each night from our very local roost, Tree Bumblebees nesting in bird box, Great Tits managed to get two chicks to fledge Great Spotted Woodpeckers took 4 chicks out of box, Song Thrush bred but Sparrowhawk chased one into patio door yesterday and then flew off with it, a rare Hedgehog visits most evenings, Hummingbird Hawkmoth on Valerian, pair of Bullfinch feeding two young daily.
We have had a mini heatwave last week which has been great for dragonflies and where in the past it would have been a rarity to see Emperor Dragonflies around Normanby I have had them at every pond in the vicinity, I have also had good numbers of Banded Demoiselles and Black-tailed Skimmers.
Butterflies have been very scarce so far this year but we did find some Brimstone eggs shown below and then just a selection of various creatures seen over the last few weeks...
and a few Orange-tip butterflies
A very beautiful Hawthorn Shieldbug
An out of focus but I like it anyway Buff-tailed Bumblebee
Lots of Garden Chafers this spring
Ha now this could be quite a good beetle I found it locally but unfortunately the photo isn't good enough for the experts to identify it but it could be Panagaeus cruxmajor or Panagaus bipustulatus still waiting for the verdict!
This large hoverfly is a Bumblebee mimic Eristalis Intricarius very deceptive
One of the Ichneumon Wasps maybe Dusona Falcator?
Finally Ivy Broomrape, ten spikes at the bottom of the garden this year.
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