Today was a good day for taking photographs of butterflies on my phone!
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Greater Bee Fly
This wonderful chap was sat on a gate I was fixing in the garden It is a Greater Bee Fly, Bombylius major, and is apparently a bee mimic. It lays eggs near the entrance of a ground nesting solitary bee and when they eggs hatch the larvae finds its way into the nest and feeds […]
New life – Tadpoles
For the third time this century we have had frogspawn in our pond on 14th February, these are now beginning to “hatch”
Bee friendly spring flowers
Monsters in the swamp
Monsters in the swamp (or frogs in the pond!) On Thursday 25 February our pond went crazy! Over 40 frogs appeared as if from nowhere and started to mate leaving huge “piles” of frog spawn. Spring has arrived! The earliest we have recorded frogs laying frog spawn in this pond in the 20 years since […]
Elephant Hawkmoth Caterpillar
17 August 2020 Whilst clearing a few plants next to a path this wonderful looking caterpillar crept out: A quick check on the iNaturalist app identified it as an Elephant Hawkmoth caterpillar, so called because it looks like an elephants trunk! They are usually found between July and September, the two enormous, black eyespots towards […]
Gooseberries Gone!
For the first time ever I have lost most of my gooseberry crop to birds. Not only have they taken most of the gooseberries they have broken many of the branches. I grow my gooseberries as cordons so that it is easier to deal with sawfly, lets more air in to reduce the chance of […]
Yellow Barred Longhorn
Whilst watering my 1 year old maiden apple trees in the fruit forest nursery I came across this little beauty. I couldn’t believe how long his antenae are! He is a male yellow barred longhorn, a diurnal moth who apparently is most commonly found on forest and woodland floors – so nice that he recognises […]
Speedwell
The edge of one of our wild areas, where it meets the grass path, hosts a beautiful speedwell. I think this one is the birds-eye speedwell. Speedwell is also known as Paul’s Bettony and is used as a medicinal herb. A long blooming, easy to care for perennial, Speedwell is prized as a garden flower […]
Small Tortoiseshell catterpillars
Although I leave a lot of nettles to grow in my hedge and other wilder areas of the garden I rarely see any catterpillars on them. Just down the road from our house is an expanse of nettles growing under oak and chestnut trees and this week there have been loads of catterpillars on them. […]