Butterflies and Bees

Sorry that I haven't posted anything much recently. I have been (a) very busy, and (b) not here, as you are about to find out. We, as a family went to a music festival last Thursday until yesterday called WOMAD (World of Music, Arts and Dance). I had a great time and I recommend it to all. We camped in a quiet part of the campsite with wild flowers. There were plenty of bees there and, after much trouble, I managed to take a picture of one. It was still disappointingly rubbish though, so it is not included below. Also, at home there are bees and butterflies. I was more successful in capturing these on my camera.

The bees in our garden are honey bees and are attracted by the marjoram which has purple flowers. The ones I saw at the music festival in Wiltshire were a mix of Honey Bees and various Bumble Bees. The butterflies I have seen are Ringlets, Peacocks and Gatekeepers. Next door, there is a Buddleia bush, which they may be attracted by.

A Honey Bee:

Another Honey Bee (or is it they same one?!)

Peacock Butterfly (It flew into our garden shed and landed on a paint pot breifly):

A Ringlet Butterfly:

Fat is in fashion!

At the moment, our fat balls and blocks are particulary popular with the birds. We have had Long-tailed Tits, Blue Tits, Blackbirds, Starlings, Robins and Magpies. The Long-tailed Tits are very entertaining, and I saw 10 all crowd around the fat ball feeder. I find it quite amusing that they scavenge for the last few crumbs of fat. It is good that they are visiting and I hope they are here to stay! We recently bought a fat block, which had all gone within 2 days, mostly because of the Blackbirds. The strange thing is that, normally, the fat products are more popular in winter, but there are no signs of this at the moment.
The picture below shows what I think is a young blackbird, judging by its unusually light plumage. The females are slightly darker than this.

Very Slow-worms

I went out yesterday, to see if I could possibly get a picture of a slow-worm in the garden. I did eventually manage to get a picture, but I encountered a few problems.

In our garden, near the swing is an unused sandpit. Well, not exactly unused. I lifted the sandpit up to reveal 1 adult and 1 young slow-worm. I was lifting the sandpit up with my left hand, while trying to take a picture with my right hand. This would have been easily managable, but I couldn't get my digital camera to focus properly. Thankfully, the well-named creatures stayed put while I tried to focus my camera and take a few snaps, before they slithered off at a very slow pace.

The first picture is just to show where I found the 2 slow worms. The other 2 are of the adult and young respectively.

Garden update

I'm glad I can now post something with some of my own images and videos. The feeders are quite busy at the moment, but larger birds such as Magpies and Wood Pigeons are taking over. The hanging bird table on our feeder pole, and the fat are particularly popular with the Magpies. They are also keen on the peanuts I left loose on the table. I have to admit that they are very entertaining to watch, but they are very intimidating to smaller birds, such as Blue Tits. When the large birds have gone, the smaller ones take advantage, and take as much food as quickly as possible. As I was outside, I noticed the return on the Starlings in our garden. They had a nibble at the fat balls before disappearing.

Male Greenfinch and female House Sparrow:

Young Robin: Collared Dove: Junenile Goldfinch: Starling:

Goldfinch:

Blackbird:

Magpie:

House Sparrow video:

Blue Tit and Coal Tit taking brief snack from feeders:

Robin chicks

Before I mention anything else, I must clarify that the images below were not taken by me. I wish they had though because they are very good. Both images have a Robin nest, and they were taken by 2 different people. The first picture is from my Auntie Rose, taken in Scotland when she was visiting, and shows a group of Robins not long before fledging. The bottom 2 were taken by my dad's work colleague, Edwin. These are at an early stage, and don't look like fledging any time soon. Here they are:

Our next-door neighbour's garden had a natural Robin nest in a lowish hedge/bush, and I managed to get a photo of one of the fledgelings. The parents fed the chicks fairly frequently, when they were in the nest. Here is one of the pics I took:

Thank you Rose and Edwin for these pics to enable me to do this post.

BTW, I have a memory card for my camera now, so I should be able to take some more photos for more posts soon.

USO (Unidentified Slithering Object)

Firstly, sorry that I have been unable to enter post recently. I have ordered a memory card for my camera with no memory space left, but it hasn't arrived yet. In the overgrown part of our garden, where there are often lizards, I saw something rather strange...

A "snake" was seen in the overgrown part of our garden that inhabits large numbers of lizards already. It was a sunny day, and I was outside filling up the bird feeders. The sun-bathing lizards caught my eye, and I watched them for a bit. Then, to my left there was some movement in the undergrowth. I got closer and saw a large browny, silvery creature slithering. I didn't see its head, which would have given it away, so I am not entirely sure what it was. Through trial and elimination, I have ruled out the Adder and the Grass Snake. Unfortunately, this leaves me with the rarest of the 3, the Smooth Snake. While they do live in our area, and in other southern areas, they are known for being particularly scarce. According to its article/factfile on the BBC website, they primarily eat lizards, which would explain why it was there.

However, there is another species it could have been too. The slow worm is a legless lizard, which can grow to be nearly as large as some snakes. The reason why I am not sure if it is a slow worm is because most of the time, they aren't very active, but this one was moving quite fast. It might also have been a bit large to be a slow wom. Okay, now I am just confusing you! Can somebody help?

Here are some pictures of the suspect creatures.

Top: slow worm from google images
Bottom: Smooth snake from BBC website

Plenty to choose from

The bird feeders in our garden attract a decent variety of garden birds. In order to attract different species, however, we put out lots of different types of food. Below, is a list of the foods we put out for the birds.

Peanuts: A food source which is used mostly by tits, and finches and will, very occasionally invite woodpeckers. I have seen a Greater Spotted Woodpecker twice, and they are a treat to see. Unfortunately, as we discovered, they also attract squirrels. While they are great fun to watch, they destroyed our original peanut feeder in its effort to remove the food. Apparently though, other food sources are now much preferred to peanuts. No idea why!

Feeder Seed mixes: We used to feed the birds with black sunflower seeds, and sunflower hearts. These were popular with finches in particular. The seed mixes are generally more popular with the smaller birds, such as tits and Dunnocks. The seeds were small enough that the Blue Tit parents fed a few of them to the chicks in our nest box this year. I think this food also helped see the return of House Sparrows in our garden. The spillage, from the feeders keeps the ground feeding birds happy too.

Table mixes: We sometimes provide Robin foods bought from the local pet store. It includes mealworms, seeds and cereal type things. It is quite expensive, but I find that the birds love it. As you may have guessed, it attracts Robins. However, House Sparrows, Blackbirds, Collared Doves, Magpies, Wood Pigeons Dunnocks and tits are also attracted by these foods. I also put some Raspberries and Blackcurrants on the table, alongside a few scraps, which keeps the bird table busy.

Fat: Keeps our Blue Tits, Great Tits, Coal Tits, Robins, Blackbirds, Magpies and the odd flock of Long-tailed Tits busy. Earlier in the year, Starlings were an entertaining sight at the fat cakes and balls, but I have seen an absence in them recently.

Nyjer Seed: In our garden, it almost exclusively attracts Goldfinches, but Greenfinches are occasionally seen feeding on them.

Images all from CJ wildlife website apart from raspberries (google images)

Bunny watch

I'd like to introduce you to our pet rabbits. We have a grand total of 2 bunnies (1 male, 1 female). One is called Maisy, and the other is called Sparky.

Maisy is over 2 years old now, and we got her when she was very young. We got her a rescued companion, called Jake, but he sadly died last year. We then got Sparky (another rescued rabbit from the RSPCA). We are not exactly sure of his age, but we do know he is a young rabbit. They have very different personalities, yet they get on so well together. Sparky is a friendly, sociable rabbit, who cleans and cares for Maisy. He is quite lazy though. He is mostly white, save a brown stripe down his back, and a lovely brown/ginger patch behind his ears. His shape is more like a stereotypical wild rabbit. Maisy is a larger bunny. She is a very funny creature to watch. She will often does a loopy sprint around the run, for no particular reason, while vaguely chasing Sparky. She is nervous, and she gets spooked by slight movements outside (even if its just me). She is white all over, with floppy ears. They have a large run, and hutch which they spend their time in. They mow our lawn nicely, and fertilize it too! We have become surprisingly attached to these pets, and thought this post might just show it. Below are a few pictures I took.

p.s. I saw the scrawny fox checking out the bunnies, but again, couldn't get a picture (it was too dark).