Brightly coloured bugs and a far from Dingy Skipper

I discovered a new Shield Bug on my Purple Sprouting Broccoli recently. They were already mating and seem to have appeared overnight as I'm in there cutting the stems for the chickens most days (we have had enough of the darn stuff). There are now about a dozen of them and they are Ornate Shield Bugs which guess what, like to munch on brassicas. Well these PSBs are coming out very soon to make way for tomatoes and courgettes so I'll have to try to find them a home somewhere!

Ornate Shield Bug (Eurydema ornata) mating and munching on Purple Sprouting Broccoli.

Ornate Shield Bug (Eurydema ornata) on the broccoli head.
They are very shiny and hard to photograph even when it's cloudy!

A very shiny photo but which clearly shows the damage they are causing to the leaves.
Not a problem on this particular plant as we don't eat the leaves, but you wouldn't want them on your cabbage.

Graphosoma lineatum - the Striped Shield Bug.
Normally seen on Dill and Fennel but here it's posing on Golden Oregano nearby.

Another commonly seen red and black bug in spring is this Froghopper (Cercopis vulnerata).

I've shown this caterpillar before but this one was big and I found it munching on my Festuca Glauca, in a spot where it was difficult to get a photo. As soon as you go near these caterpillars though they curl up into a ball! It must be their defensive mechanism; I guess showing their bright colours side on like this makes them look more scary looking to predators?

Drinker Moth caterpillar (Euthrix potatoria).

And now some that are not colourful themselves, but they were on brightly coloured flowers.......

A Honey Bee on a Dandelion.

I don't often see jumping spiders on leaves; they are much easier to spot on compost bins and
the duck shed wall. Here's one on Golden Oregano. The pale pedipalps indicate that it is a sub-adult.

Very common at the moment is the Heineken Hoverfly (Rhingia campestris).
It has a little friend in the picture.

Normally I'd have binned a photo like this but this is the only one where I have
the Hairy-footed Flower Bee's (Anthophora plumipes) actual hairy foot on display!
Also I think it's quite funny, like it went splat on the flower!

Several times I saw this very handsome looking bee amongst my kale flowers and finally got some captures so I could look it up. I was happy to discover that it is Melecta albifrons, the Cuckoo Bee of the Hairy-footed Flower Bee.  Cuckoo bees are so named because just like the cuckoo bird which lays its eggs in other birds' nests, so do these bees. They leave all the hard work of gathering pollen and making a burrow to lay their eggs in to Anthophora plumipes! Their larva will hatch out and eat the stored pollen intended for Anthophora plumipes, pupate and then emerge from the nest the following spring.  Some Cuckoo Bees will also eat the larva of the host species but I haven't found any specific reference to this regarding Melecta albifrons. One would assume that even if they don't, the larva of the host would die due to having nothing to eat.

More info about Cuckoo Bee behaviour: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cuckoo_bee

Melecta albifrons, the Cuckoo Bee of the Hairy-footed Flower Bee.

Melecta albifrons.

A small fly having a wash on a Forget Me Not.

I found this beetle on a watering can and persuaded it onto my hand.
It is Rhagium bifasciatum, the Two-banded Longhorn Beetle.

My most exciting find this last week was a lifer! A new butterfly to add to my list. This is a Dingy Skipper and I found it in a woodland clearing (not at home). It's got beautiful markings on its wings and there's nothing dingy about it!

Dingy Skipper (Erynnis tages).

OK not a bug but it's colourful! Another out of the kitchen window shots.
Green Woodpecker (Picus viridis).

And finally..... I found some eggs on my Bronze Fennel. I was really hoping they might be Swallowtail butterfly eggs..... and they are! So here goes with Swallowtail Raising Year 3 - this time right from the egg stage. Might I even see a butterfly actually eclose this time? If you haven't followed my blog for long then you will have missed all the action from previous years found on my 6 part (so far) series entitled "Raising Swallowtails".

Egg of Old World Swallowtail butterfly (Papilio machaon) on Bronze Fennel.

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. 

April - the best in bloom this month

This is one of my favourite months of the year, when the majority of fruit trees blossom and the leaves appear on the trees and shrubs. My garden changes more during this month than any other, starting the month with most colour coming from bulbs and blossom, and ending a mass of blue with the Aquilegias, Forget Me Nots, Bluebells and Cat Mint at their best. It's a time to stop and stare a while and the only way to capture the moment is to photograph it, as a few days later it will be different yet again!

I bought mixed Narcissus bulbs years ago and have no idea
of names. I just enjoy the variety of colours and shapes,
flowering at different times.

Funnily enough whilst randomly googling I came across Narcissus 'Geranium' which I think is the above variety! 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Narcissus_Geranium.jpg

This kind of bog standard tulip comes back year after year, never losing quality.
The Pulmonaria in the background is still flowering, after about two months.

Geranium Phaeum, which is becoming a bit of a thug!
The plants just get bigger and bigger and self seed everywhere.

Ornamental Weeping Cherry by the pond was a delight.

Species Tulips look beautiful whether they are open or closed.

They open on sunny days, which thankfully we had plenty of this month!

This Rhododendron was smothered in flowers and is just starting to go over now, 
but I've a later flowering one to take its place!

More unknown Narcissus - they are growing in my Thyme bank and always
look downhill, so I can't get closer to them to photograph them.

Wallflowers (Erysimum). I used to poo-poo these spring bedding plants
but now I know how wonderful they are; delightfully fragrant
with really bright colours just when you need them, early in the year.

Front of the house looking bright with the Euphorbias still going strong.
Two out of three cats got into the picture, can you spot them?

A nice place to sit and have a cuppa, as can be seen by the two mugs
on the bench that I forgot were there! That's the Weeping Cherry,
although it's not weeping that much as we gave it a haircut last year.

The big old eating Cherry looked magnificent too.

Here it is behind the Lilac.

Lilac. What more can I say. Mmmm!

This pic goes back to earlier in the month, when my Cercis Canadensis 'Forest Pansy' was
smothered in buds. This is its 3rd spring here and so far the buds had never opened,
just dropping onto the ground after a week or two.

Hoorah, after several weeks some of the flowers actually opened up!
It wasn't the blast of colour that it should be, and after this most of the buds..... dropped off!
But this is a huge improvement.

Round the front of the house, the Golden Oregano now matches the colour
from the Euphorbias. That's a raspberry and blackberry bed
looking ugly in the background!

Early morning near the end of the month,
the Arum Lily (Zantedeschia) is starting to flower.

Blue Aquilegias and Alpine Forget Me Not, which is small and compact and fills the gaps nicely.

Couldn't forget Apple blossom!

When the Tulips start to lose their petals,
it's a lot easier to see their insides. :-)

This last week has been mostly wet and cloudy, so I haven't taken many new photos, but did get a photo of my first Clematis to flower when the sun came out later in the afternoon yesterday.

Clematis 'Miss Bateman'.

I think I may resurrect my Flowers by Month theme where I managed to feature flowers every month for the entire year in 2012. I take so many photos I need somewhere to share them!