The Garden Recently

So whats been going on in the garden recently? well, because of the weather we have had quite a few bugs around, also there have been huge numbers of fledglings on the lawn. But we'll start with the bugs. First day of the good weather, there was a curious bee on the flowers near the garden pond. It only caught my eye because, when we were in cambridge, my dad said he would like to see a tree bumblebee (he has an interest in bees), so it was unfortunate that he was at work when one seemingly fitting the picture in his book, turned up in the back yard.
It would seem that there would be no doubt in the i.d except for the fact that tree bumblebees don't live this far north. It would however seem that there was nothing else it could be, so maybe its an abbarant record, or I am missing something.

-Tree Bumblebee
Also, on the pond, there were our usual large red damselflies. always a joy to see, and this year there were three, two males and one female around the pond. The one featured directly below was also so bold that I could get it to land on my finger. There was also a mating pair so we know that we will have some next year too. One of them was perched perfectly for a photograph, so I have also got my best ever photos of this species!

-Large red damselflys
On the bird front there has been a lot of activity with fledglings on the lawn, and also on the birdbath. There have not been as many baby robins this year, not like sparrows, which have been in excess, there was however this rather splendid individual on the birdbath.

-immature robin
on the wires behind the house there was a surprise with about 5 rather smashing juvenile mistle thrushes accompanied by two adults sitting. This is not a species that we have seen evidence of breeding before, as our records normally involve a crabby winter individual but there you go. Not all the birds in the photos are thrushes, as there were starlings also using the wire.

-Mistle thrush juveniles
and also on the note of starlings on the wire, we also had some on the lawn, about 4 babies surrounding an adult. they did look rather cute, and they were also bold enough to come to the window feeder, which mean't that I was less than 1 meter away from them.

-starlings

so as you can see, there has been plenty of stuff going on in the garden, only the warm weather is supposed to disssapear shortly, so it may not be around for much longer.