Other Garden Goings on

Besides the pond life and butterflies, there have been a number of other intresting things in the garden over the course of the hot spell. Most of them involve small insects that require some looking for, but one of the best is the juvenile robin that we have had around. On one occasion, it even came and landed on the window ledge for the feeders there, whilst I was sat next to the window, so I was less than 1 meter away from it.

-Juvenile Robin
Besides the robin, our annual snipe-fly appearance has begun, when hundreds of these flies can be found everywhere. That being said, before I have never taken a photo, so this time I decided that it should not remain that way any longer, so I snapped this one on the garage wall.

-Snipe Fly
Another insect I spotted whilst I was sat on the lawn was this click beetle. Not much to say about it really, but as i have said before, its one of my favourite beetles, so I have included these photos, inclding one showing it with its wings open.

-Click Beetle 
On the last night of sun, I saw a rather large zebra spider on the roof. By large I mean large for a Zebra spider, as it was still only about half a centimeter long. Either way, its something that i had wanted a photo of for a while, and only now had the oppertunity arisen. They are great to watch, as they hop around, and if you move they turn and stare right at you with their great big eyes. This one was no exception, only because it was a bit bigger, I was able to get some better photos.

-Zebra Spider

the garden recently-avenged!!

Plenty of garden action over the past week, probably due to the warm weather. luckily it has not been too hot and I have been out in the garden with the camera. I would like to announce the joyous news that there has been a shooting. yes that's right, a shooting, only with a camera. I finally managed to get that picture of a magpie. That given, the light was low, I was too slow and the birdbath was in the way but never-the-less I have finally managed to get that photo.

As you can see, there still not much but at least I have now got one in case I need to use it.

the warm weather meant that many birds and animals were quite sluggish and, as with the deer at hard castle craggs, not very flighty. I think that this picture of our local collard dove pair relaxing on the law sums up just about how everyone was feeling. They were the very essence of the word relaxed!!

The hot weather also had the bonus and bring all the frogs back to the pond so that they could remain cool. Normally the next time that we would see the frogs would be next spring when they return to lay more eggs so its great to catch up with them even now. On Sunday we had at least 5 frogs in the top pond and at least 1 was still around today.

No real reason why i included this apart from the fact that I love click beetles. this one didn't click, primarily because I didn't annoy it. I found this on the house wall resting from the sun. you might be able to see that the beetle is hiding on the side of the wall away from the sun.

speaking of laying eggs, our great tit parents have been working around the clock. I have named them Neat and scratty, mainly for those precise reasons. I think the top bird is the male (Neat) and the bottom bird the female. I'm not quite sure what happened to her but she does look a mess. still, she is doing a great job as a mum and, for that matter, him as a dad. I hope they don't nab the click beetle, see earlier, but if they do, it died in a worthy cause. this is our only remaining pair of birds in the garden since the robins move, their chicks were probably eaten by the wretched cat. This pair are quite safe from cats, almost 5m about the ground. they really are great parents. I stood near the box for about 20 mins and in that time both birds made a total number of about 15 trips. Its great to watch and photograph.

And another great addition to the garden wildlife is the return of our large red damselflies. there was only one but that's still a great sight, just look at the colours.

as you can see its been a great weekend for the garden wildlife. also, the stock dove returned this evening, keeping the bird biodiversity on a high