30 Days Wild 2019 – Day 08

This afternoon I searched for ladybirds in the garden.  Last weekend I spotted a couple of ladybird larvae in my Mum’s garden; she has been gardening for years but had never seen them before!  This weekend I decided to see how many she had hiding in the flowers.  After a little searching I found two 7-spots (Coccinella septempunctata) sunning themselves on some leaves…

…and then two 7-spot larvae.  Sadly one of them had passed away but the other was hunting for food.  

As I was watching I noticed some yellow in amongst the leaves, it was a 22-spot ladybird (Psyllobora vigintiduopunctata).  

Ladybirds or ladybugs (if you are American) are common in our gardens and  can be found throughout the UK. There are 46 species in the UK and the 7-spot is one of the most common.  They feed on a variety of aphid species and can usually be found where there is an influx of their food source; they can consume approx. 5500 in their lifetime! and why ladybirds are called a gardeners friend. The 22-spot on the other hand doesn’t eat aphids it feeds on mildew on a variety of plants, usually umbellifers and low-growing shrubs.

All of my finds have been added to iRecord πŸ™‚

My Patch – April 2019

April 3rd – This morning in the garden there were two robins, long-tailed tits and the starlings were clicking up on the roof.  

April 10th – some late afternoon sun brought out the bees and a 7-spot ladybird.  Unfortunately I didn’t get very clear photos of the bees so not sure which ones they were!  I still find them confusing.


April 11th – This evening I got a chance to take a short walk around the field.  The male fallow deer were located out in the centre of the field, I think they are starting to get used to me as they don’t react too much now.  I was hoping I would start to find some flowers in the field but its either too early or too many herbicides have been sprayed so they haven’t had a chance to develop yet.  I did find a lone lesser celandine.  In the garden there is a male goat willow tree, in the field down near next doors garden, is what I believe to be a female goat willow.  

The birds that nest around the house have been much more visible around their nest sites, the jackdaws are in the chimneys and the starlings are taking nesting material into the roof πŸ™‚

There was a bee checking out holes in the garden wall this evening, it has taken me a while to figure out, but I have finally narrowed it down to being a hairy-footed flower bee.  The first one I have ever seen πŸ™‚ 

April 15th – this morning I found my first brimstone moth, just sat on the wall outside the front door!  

April 18th – Whilst tidying the raised bed I noticed all the small creatures starting to appear in the vegetation.  The first one I spotted was apion frumentarium, next up was a tiny dark bush-cricket (Pholidoptera griseoaptera) and then a clover mite.  My last discovery of the day was a phalangium opilio spider.  I had never seen any of them before so this evening I had to do some research into what they all were!

Now I seem to have missed the nesting season this year!  I don’t know how; has all just happened earlier this year? or have I just been occupied with  growing plants and missed it? today I saw a starling take food into his nest!  Tomorrow I aim to pay a little more attention and train my camera on the nest hole to see exactly what is going on.  

April 19th – The starlings are 100% feeding in the nests at the back of the house, I watched both parents visit one after the other.  They both had at least two items of food in their beaks.  

There were more 7-spot ladybirds in the garden this afternoon and an orange-tip butterfly landed on the garlic mustard πŸ™‚

April 20th – today I was concentrating on concreting the patio, however I couldn’t miss the common frog that hopped out of a hole underneath the raised bed and off across the patio.  He had been disturb as I had put sand over the top of him as I was filling in a hole and I hadn’t seen him!  I moved him up next to the small pond so he could hide under the plants.  

April 21st – there was a moth on the window, a Lunar marbled brown (Drymonia ruficornis).  I got out in the field for a walk this morning.  I heard my first cuckoo of the year – it is so nice to know he has returned safely.  I didn’t notice a lot of other birds, I don’t know if it was because I seemed to be noticing the insects or they just didn’t seem to be about.  I did have a companion with me who does make more noise than me when walking so it could have been a factor!  I did hear a woodpecker drumming.  

Since I have been following #Wildflowerhour on Twitter my botanical skills have improved greatly.  It is nice to be able to identify my finds without now having to spend hours trying to figure out what they are!  I want to take note this year of what is growing in the field so that next year I might be able to add to the population by growing them from seed and planting them out.  Today I identified, ground-ivy, red dead-nettle, cuckooflower and garlic mustard in the copse.  I was pleased to see the amount of garlic mustard there was as I know in the copse it won’t be cut down when the crop is harvested, hopefully it also explains the orange-tips who were darting around close by.  I need to go for a wander amongst it to see what else is growing in there!  

The time I save not having to look up flowers is definitely spent on the insects and arachnids!  After a lot of work identifying (I hope correctly) I found; Helophilus pendulus, Cucumber spider, Corizus hyoscyami, nomada sp. unknown, Nursery Web Spider, notostira elongata, Eupeodes sp. unknown, Pied Shieldbug (Tritomegas bicolor) on host plant white dead-nettle, Yellow Dung Fly (Scathophaga stercoraria), Flesh Fly (Sarcophaga carnaria), what I think is a pterostichus cupreus eating a harpalus affinis, Peacock butterfly and my first Dark-edged Bee-fly (Bombylius major) of the year!

When walking back up past the copse the fallow deer appeared in front of us.  They decided that is was safe enough to run out of the copse and into the field stopping a safe distance away.  I like these types of encounters πŸ™‚

April 24th – I’m sure I saw a swallow this evening; I don’t think I was imagining it but it was only a fleeting glimpse.  I happened to take a photo of the garlic mustard and only noticed afterwards that there is a orange-tip egg on it πŸ™‚ I hope we have some more.  It is nice to know that all I am trying to do with the garden is helping some of the garden visitors.   

April 25th – The starling chicks at the front of the house have started calling – across the garden and the neighbouring house I think there are now three starling nests with calling chicks. 

April 29th – The field was being sprayed when I got there this evening; I assume with pesticides. The male fallow deer who were resting in the middle of the field didn’t move until the machinery was two runs away from them. They ran off but then stopped short of the copse, they eventually disappeared.  The starlings are still calling and I heard the cuckoo again this evening πŸ™‚

 

My Patch – February 2019

February 1st – I managed to get to work in all the snow and at lunch they decided to send everyone home.  Of course I didn’t go home I went straight to the patch – I wasn’t going to miss using ‘free time’ to check out what’s going on even if it was snowing!  I headed out and over by the copse found deer tracks and found a robin in the brambles.  I really liked the monotone colour of the field with the snow falling the carrion crow added to the artistic feel.  There were not that many birds on the ground though I did hear a buzzard and overhead 8 lapwing, a black-headed gull and a cormorant all flew over while I was out.  I was looking at the trees when a small movement caught my eye, a wren was at the base of tree trunk looking for food in the little bits of ground there where not covered in snow.   

Once back at the house I sat and watched the birds on the feeders: 2 blue tits, 1 great tit, 5 starlings, 1 robin and one bird that made me look twice – a reed bunting!  I have never seen one in the field or the garden before so it took me a while to recognise it as I just didn’t expect to see one.     

February 2nd – Today was a beautifully sunny day.  I had to go out in the field as we don’t get many days like this a year!  The only footprints in the field were mine, fallow deer, fox, brown hare and rabbit. No other humans had been there.  It’s good to know the creatures of the field don’t get a lot of disturbance.  I know people walk down by the river as there are sometimes dog walkers but generally they only seem to be there at weekends. When I reached the copse I could hear a redwing calling, I finally located it at the top of the trees in the hedgerow just opposite.  

I walked along my normal route down the side of the copse what I hasn’t notice when i walked across the field was the fallow deer led down along the side of the trees, they were really well camouflaged against the brown of the tree trunks.  I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised to find them there as they were in the same location where I had noticed the snow had been disturbed yesterday.  

I didn’t want to disturb them so I walked in the next field over on the other side of the copse.  The sun shining through the trees looked really pretty.  It was hard work walking down to the river as the snow seemed to be deep on this side of the trees, in some places it was half way up my calves!  

As I reached the river I noticed three cormorants sat in one of the trees further downstream.  I wouldn’t have normally seen them as I wasn’t technically in my patch.  I have seen the odd one fly overhead so its nice to know there is more than one passing through.  There were lots of hoof prints down by the river, the deer must use the copse to get to the river to drink.  It is actually really useful to go out in the snow when no other humans have been about as the animal tracks have given me a much better idea of how they use the features of the field.  

I haven’t really got to grips with the river yet and this summer I would like to spend some more time there (though I might need to tame some of the vegetation so I can actually see the river!).  I heard a moorhen, saw a blue tit on one of the trees, two pairs of mallard swam by and four long-tailed tit worked their way along the bank from tree to tree.  There are large gaps between each tree so maybe there needs to be a couple of extras added for them.  I felt like a rabbit at one point as shadows moving along the ground caught my eye, thankfully in my case it didn’t mean danger just two grey heron flying over.

I decided to walk all the way around the field so not to disturb the deer on my walk back to the car.  It looks as though they generally only venture to the copse, the river and the ‘island’ which I believe was a meander in the river which had been altered to straighten the river once more.  I do however think this could also be the reason the river bank is eroding and the trees are leaning in the river as they loose their stable ground.  According to the land owner the river is much wider now than it was when he was a child.  

As I walked along the far edge I noticed fox prints, there were more towards the barn and I think it may have caught something as the snow was all scuffed up but there were not any signs of what it might have caught.  It looks like it could have been hiding in the hedge and pounced out.  I noticed a bird box on one of the trees which I haven’t seen before, they have cleared the ditch so I guess that’s why it’s visible now.  I wanted to check to see if had been used but I don’t know who has put it there and didn’t want to interfere.  One of the trees was old enough, to be large enough, for me to stand against its trunk, I liked the shadow the sun was casting of it on the snow.  

I had reached the barn but had to be conscious of the deer that were still relaxing on the other side of the field.  I didn’t want to spook them so moved slowly and stopped regularly to check on them and take more photos πŸ™‚ 

February 14th – 20:25 no owls heard – none heard all week

February 17th – The swans have returned πŸ™‚ There were three in the field down by the river. I wonder if they will stay; there were numerous feeding on the crop shoots last year. 

This evening I cleaned out all of the nest boxes ready for this season.  I know last year a great tit started to build a nest in the starling box, what I hadn’t realised was it made a full nest; I don’t think it raised any young, though now I’m not sure and wonder if I missed the signs.  The sparrow terrace had a nest too!  Last year there were no signs of nesting in it at all and I was expecting to have to relocate it this year.  Seeing there has been some success all the boxes were put back in the same locations.  Fingers crossed for more nests this year…

February 22nd  – I spent the day in the garden cutting back the hawthorn hedge.  The birds were not happy with me; a) because I was in the garden and they didn’t want to go to the bird feeder on the left side (their favourite feeder) and b) I was cutting down their favourite place to sit before they dart onto the feeder!  I have promised them that once the fence has been jet washed and painted I will make sure there are some shrubs in pots put next to the feeder that they can use as additional cover.  The great spotted woodpecker kept landing in the goat willow tree, then I noticed another land close by, they seemed to have a disagreement and one flew off.  If I sat quietly on the garden bench, one would come down and feed on the feeders a few meters away.  Later on I heard drumming in the distance.  I spotted my first 7-spot ladybird on one of the plants and a bumblebee was buzzing around but I didn’t manage to locate it to find out what it was.  

It does worry me that the insects are out already, that its going to be warm all weekend and it could possibly get cold again.  What worries me more is the majority of people don’t see this as worrying.  Colleagues at work were talking about how nice the weekend was going to be and that soon they will be able to get the BBQ’s out etc, I mentioned the insects and they sort of went quiet (I often feel like the odd girl in the corner that doesn’t talk about normal things!).  A couple of people engage with talking about their gardens and planting some flowers for the insects – a couple is better than none.

I know there is a lot more in the news about the issues we face but I’m not sure people really see what’s going on around them or how everything interacts – I guess they just aren’t interested.  I managed to convince my office to be more aware about crisp packets; to collect all their empty packets so they can be sent off for recycling.  I was known as the ‘girl collecting crisp packets’ for a while after my office manager agreed I could have a box behind my desk for them, but now people from other departments sometime drop off used packets too!  In my mind any packet collected is better than it ending up in landfill.  I’m just not sure how we convince everyone to care about it!  I think they have to see the effects with their own eyes to understand how it actually effects them.   

February 25th – 19:55 no owls – none heard all week

February 27th – there were 19 fallow deer in the field at sunset.  The long-tailed tits wanted to get to the fat balls to feed, they weren’t happy I was stood in the way watching the deer, they were shouting at me from the hazel tree, I moved so they could feed.  Two tree sparrows were following each other through the jasmine looking for bugs, they flew off together, I hope they find one of the nest boxes nearby, though last year some did nest in the roof space just above the jasmine so fingers crossed.  

The mute swans didn’t stayed longer than a couple of days, hopefully they will come back when the crop is more suitable for eating!

My Patch – July 2018

I have been trying to catch up on writing some of my blog posts, which is why I am posting July in January!! After summer I have been rather rubbish at posting anything; partly because I have lots of images where I need to identify the insects or flowers and its taken longer than anticipated.  I end up with a list of ‘blogs to write’ and then feel like events occurred too long ago to write about them. I do however feel that they are all part of a story I’ve been telling on here so have been doing my best to start catching up….

My first trip out into the patch in July was the 9th – I wasn’t out there very long; I got bitten by a horsefly on the inside of my wrist.  I saw it and tried to flick it off but it didn’t move, I had to try and brush it off again, finally it went.  Now I had a few bites the other week that turned into great big red patches so I thought it best to go and put some bite lotion on it.  I have to say it didn’t help, this bite came up in blisters and half my forearm swelled up!  I was wearing Boots sun cream that has insect repellent in it, either I hadn’t covered that spot or it doesn’t work too well with horseflies!  I asked on Twitter for some suggestions to keep them away and two options that came back were, Avon Skin so soft and Jungle formula.  I’ll have to give each a try to see which one works the best for me.

While I was out in the field I heard roe deer in the copse; well that was until a walker spooked them with their yappy dog that didn’t seem to follow commands!  All I could hear after that was a high pitched dog whistle that wasn’t going to help me see anything!  Why do people have to be so noisy?!  There were numerous butterflies on the what I believe to be bristly oxtongue and also ox-eye daisies.  I am rubbish at identifying the ‘white’ butterflies, once I have seen them all in the flesh and I ‘know’ which is which I will be more confident but at the moment I’m still not sure.  They were quite difficult to photograph as they were continually flitting around not sitting still for a second.  There was a very small dark butterfly that I couldn’t identify, its what I was trying to follow when I got bitten!  I still have no idea what it was, I hope I can get back out there one evening to have another look for it. 

I was tending the 12 tomato plants and noticed a leaf cutter bee buzzing around my head, I moved away and watched from the other side of the garden as I was unsure of where it was going.  It carried a piece of leaf into a tray of soil and went into a burrow.  I managed to get a very bad picture of it.   The tray now has a label on it saying it shouldn’t be disturbed as there is a potential nest in there 🙂 

July 16th – tonight there were 6 swallows feeding over the field. 

July 18th – I was surprised by all the corvids that flew over the field tonight to roost – there must have been about 70 of them.  I couldn’t clearly identify them as I was looking into the setting sun but I would make a guess at mainly rooks and carrion crows.

July 19th – I was pottering in the garden tonight when I spotted the starlings were collecting on the telephone line. I like to think it’s a family photo of all the starlings that have fledged in the garden this year! 

July 20th – The farmer has made the first test cut of the oil-seed rape in the field.  Its great because there is now a clear path to walk around the field, not so great at the loss of all the field chamomile and bristly oxtongue that were in flower πŸ™

July  23rd – the crop was cut today. 

July 24th – I didn’t know there was a wren nest in the Jasmine but today a fledgling wren was perched on the archway while I was watering. I took a quick photo and moved to the other side of the garden to stay out of its way. There was a parent nearby shouting at me!

July 25th – approx 30 swallows flew over and I discovered 104 large white caterpillars on one of the plants in the garden – I think it’s a false London rocket but I’m not 100% sure. I left them all where they were, happy that they had come to feast in the garden. The garden is after all being created for the wildlife πŸ™‚ 

July 26th – today I managed to go for a walk in the field.  It is really dry, there are cracks in the ground.  All of the bristly oxtongue where the butterflies were has all been cut down.  It feels a very different place with all the vegetation/crop removed.  The copse is starting to look brown underneath the trees.  The next field over hasn’t been harvested yet and still has some greenery around the margins.  All that is really left in the field now is mainly stinging nettles and a few patches of grass on top edge.  I know these are important but its sad that the chamomile etc has all been cut down when it would still have been useful to the insects buzzing around the field.  When the farmers all cut at the same time this sudden vanishing food source must have a real impact on our wildlife.   

July 27th – this morning there was a buzzard sat on one of the straw bales. 

Over the month I have also been looking at who else has started to visit the garden area next to the field, some I can identify easily but there are so many new creatures I have never seen before! which I have been trying my best to identify (if I have any wrong, please let me know):