Pond Lily

Just a brief post today. I noticed a flower on a lily in my raised pond. Took a photo and then ...



... decided to 'colour pop' the photo to make it stand out against a greyed out background.

Suns All Round

For once, here anyway, we have had Sunshine on and off all day and the temperature actually reached the dizzying height of 20C. Probably nearly warm enough for the BBC to show in a scary red on their new, let's scare the masses, temperature colour scheme. Another Sun which appeared was in the shape of ...





... this Hoverfly (Helophilus pendulus) also known as a Sun Fly. There were other flying creatures around but the most abundant, and irritating, were scores of what my mother used to call thunder flies (thrips). They may be only 2mm long and 1mm thick but when they land and crawl about on the skin in their dozens it feels very itchy to say the least. Fortunately they are harmless to humans, just very irritating.

Thieving Magpie

I happened to spot this video capture this morning. I was curious as to what it was doing.



In the past I have seen them bury the occasional peanut in the lawn. This is first time I have been able to work out how and why some food suddenly goes missing from the bird table.