Another brood of Moorhens and a bit of catching up!

This is our tenth year here and the first time the moorhens (not the same couple all this time!) have had two broods in one year. These ones were born around 11th June and the first brood are looking like drab brown versions of the adults now; it really doesn't take them long to grow up. But whilst they remain fluffy little pom-poms we enjoy watching them - and this time the parents have not kept them so hidden away, so it's been great.

Mum! Mum!

Although it could be Dad, as both parents care for the young.

One day I heard some interesting squeaky noises in my woodland and followed two birds from conifer to conifer, not quite being sure what I was seeing, but hoping they might be Goldcrests or Firecrests, when one suddenly stopped for a moment out in the sunshine!

Newly fledged Goldcrest still with the wide mouth look.

Going back to late May, I found this cute bee which looked like it was sleeping or resting on a Sweet William flower. However the next day it was dead (2nd photo), so it had actually been dying. I know that's normal, but it seems sad to witness it.

It was nice spot for its final resting place.

This was identified for me as a Hairy-footed Flower Bee (Anthophora plumipes).
I hadn't recognised it because its foot isn't hairy any more,
but it still has some long hairs on the middle leg.

And then there was this cute small bee measuring about 10-11mm which I saved from drowning in a watering can. It was sopping and had a good walk over my hands before I put it on my jeans, where it stayed whilst I came indoors, took a photo with my other camera, then pottered about doing things. And then it went and died on my jeans! :-(

Gorgeous bee with beautiful eyes, the ID is Osmia sp. but could be one of several species.
A facebook insect group I use is very handy for asking for ID.

Here is the Osmia sp. bee on my jeans.

And now some fluttery things....

Found this on the handle of my watering can -
I think it's a Dark Arches (Apamea monoglypha) moth.

Hummingbird Hawkmoths (Macroglossum stellatarum) have been around for a while now.

But I never see them resting! Blow me down - this one was just sitting on my new filter bed!

I tried.... the photo op was too good to resist, but it flew off a nano second after this shot!

A Painted Lady (Vanessa cardui) in amongst white Valerian.

This is a handsome Longhorn Beetle (Agapantha sp.) found on Phacelia.

And now I'll leave you with some floral photos I took, most taken back in May which I never got round to posting!

Aquilegia, one of the few Nora Barlows that I grew from seed which actually came to anything.

Bearded Iris.

Another kind of Iris which I've forgotten what it is!

Just an excuse to bung in a Speckled Wood (Pararge aegeria) butterfly,
because it was posing on one of my Weigelas
which I grew from a cutting from a friend's garden.

Honeysuckle looking good.

Honeysuckle after rain. Forgotten what rain is now!

Clematis 'The President' on one side of the arch.

And the thornless rose 'Zephirine Drouhin' which is heavily scented on the other side.

And both together. The clematis has gone over now but the rose
is a repeat flowering one so still covered in flowers.

Scented yellow Day Lily whose name I've completely forgotten! I blame the heat.

A view of the veggie patch with lots of flowers around it - there are lots of flowers in it too.
I'll do a veg patch update at the end of the month.

Sweet Williams, although this clump have gone sad
and droopy now because it's so dry!

Next update will be back to Swallowtails again as I have more to share.... but finding time to sort through photos and blog is tough right now as there's a lot to do outside! Right, off out to do the watering. :-)

Moorhen pictures and a Great Spotted Woodpecker

I have many blurry distant pictures of the moorhens and their babies as it's not been easy to see them out in the open as the parents are doing a good job of protecting them and keeping them well hidden from predators. A good thing because I've seen a Grey Heron a couple of times. They always appear when there are moorhen babies!

One day I was walking up the far bank of the pond where the ducks hang out looking for duck eggs (I've found a few so far), when I got near to where the ducks were. Blow me down if the whole moorhen family were not sitting on the bank with my ducks!! Of course they saw me and scarpered for the protection of an overhanging willow but I did manage a shot of them. There are only three babies here but I know that all four are still OK.

A parent takes the babies off to safety to get away from that horrid human!

Yesterday I got a better view. One of the parents was getting beakfuls of duck food to feed one of the babes.
This is where we are feeding the ducks by the pond with a cover to keep rain off the food.

The great thing is that baby was waiting in the water out in the open!

And I was really pleased to get this picture of both of them together!
The babies have already grown.

Also yesterday as I was doing some tidying around one of my raspberry beds I heard some pecking and squawks coming from a pine tree on my neighbour's side. Looked up and it was a Great Spotted Woodpecker attacking a large pine cone and getting a good feed of the kernels!

Great Spotted Woodpecker (Dendrocopos major).

Great Spotted Woodpecker (Dendrocopos major).

Great Spotted Woodpecker (Dendrocopos major).

Great Spotted Woodpecker (Dendrocopos major)
with a nice beakful of food!

Baby moorhens and first damselfly sightings

It's all happening around the pond right now! Saturday morning we noticed little black pompoms on the lake - the moorhen chicks had hatched and were having a little swim around the lake with their parents. After that they've been very difficult to spot as the parents are keeping them well hidden in amongst the willows that hang out over the water. Because we feed the ducks on the beach area beside the pond now, the adults have been collecting layers pellets and taking them to give to the babies. I can only get crappy photos as my camera is zoomed in to max but it's impossible to get close to them. These moorhens are really wild and not at all like the ones you see in public parks which let you get close to them as they are used to humans.

One thing we did notice this time is that it's not just Mum who stays in the nest brooding the eggs, both parents take it in turns. Isn't that lovely? :-)

Taken through the kitchen window on Saturday morning.

This is why they are very hard to see during the day!
There are two here and only their little beaks give them away.

But yesterday afternoon they were taken up the far end by the parents.
So final count - four babies!

All that white fluff is catkins from willow trees and fluffy seed heads from the Balsam Poplar.

More excitement seeing the first damselflies here yesterday afternoon. I saw a pair of Large Red Damselflies mating. Honestly, they've probably only just eclosed and they were at it already. You'd think that insects had sex on their minds, or something. ;-) I couldn't get photos of them so here are a couple from last year.

Large Red Damselfly (Pyrrhosoma nymphula).

"Hello!"

I also saw this one when I did have a camera with me. ID is quite hard at times but I think this is a female (maybe immature) Common Blue. Mature males are a lot easier to ID!

Possibly female Common Blue (Enallagma cyathigerum).

And another view of it.

I'll be doing another blog post shortly as I have tons of insects to share that I've been spotting this last week, some of which are new to me, which is all the more fun as whilst trying to ID them, I get to learn about them. 

A few critters seen recently

My OH discovered this little lizard without a tail indoors because one of the cats had brought it in. I thought it had lost its tail in the process but looking at some images on the web it looks like this is a tail that is already regenerating. I'm glad to say it was saved and put back outside near the steps to the garage, where there are plenty of gaps between the rocks for it to hide inside. It could be a Common Lizard or a Common Wall Lizard, but I have never delved into the different species of European lizards before!

Little lizard with a regenerating tail on my OH's hand.

And a slightly closer up view.

I was removing some weedy old compost from the tops of the large pots that contain my Oleanders which live out all year, when I moved one slightly and wondered why it was wobbling. I tilted the pot and brushed out what I thought was a stone. Oops, no, it was a tiny toad! 

I worried sick I might have crushed it as it looked a bit flat but appeared uninjured. So I took it round to the back door and went to get my camera. I had hoped it was a Midwife Toad which are only this size when mature (about 1 1/4 inches/3cm) as I know that we have them here from the bleepy noise they make every evening from about April onwards. But after a bit of research it is none other than a young Common Toad, which take quite a few years to reach full size. The way to tell the difference is that Common Toads have horizontal slits in their eyes and the Midwife Toads have vertical ones. This one came to life after I took a couple of photos so I took it back to where I found it and put it under some plants growing out of the house wall.

Very small Common Toad (Bufo bufo). Isn't that a nice Latin name? :-)

Here it is coming to life after its wee shock, and the lovely surface here is my gardening glove!

I was happy to see a Great Spotted Woodpecker on the peanuts a few days ago as it's the first one I've seen this year. They are normally quite common visitors to the bird feeders. I took these photos out of a house window as if I'd gone outside it would have flown off.

Female Great Spotted Woodpecker (Dendrocopos major).

The following photo is a very zoomed in picture of the moorhens' nest, where I was pleased to see that Madame is now sitting on the nest! This is really early for them so hopefully there will be a number of little black pom-poms to watch around the lake soon. You can just see her right in the middle - a black head and the top of the red beak.

Madame Moorhen sitting in her nest.

Not quite wildlife but new life. There are often sheep in the paddock across the road but they do move around to other paddocks. So when they were moved back to this one recently there were already two lambs that were of a fair size, like the one below. But a couple of days ago I was over in our orchard checking out the blossom on the fruit trees when I discovered one of the ewes with twin new born lambs!

A not so new born lamb.

Here's a tatty old ewe with two tiny lambs.

I'm surprised she let me take photos as they usually move away when they have lambs with them.
The sheep here always look really tatty by this time of year!