Wings for Wednesday

There are two plants in the front garden which are attracting plenty of winged creatures at the moment. Lavender and Hibiscus.

Bees:




Hoverflies:




Flies:


Wasps:


Notice anything missing? Butterflies! Last year the lavender especially was a great attraction for butterflies. To date this year I haven't seen one on or near these plants.

All photographs were taken with the Lumix TZ7, usually with the lens within three inches of the insect. Not a problem with the bees and hoverflies but can be a bit fraught when it comes to wasps.

Macro on Monday - Guess What

Excellent - a full house last Monday with Adrian, Keith, Wilma, Matron and Glo all gaining virtual Gold Stars for identifying the Shield Bug. Congratulation to Matron for solving her first ever anagram and to Glo for further identifying it as Palomena prasina.




On to this week's creature....
Guess What:


... which shouldn't be too difficult, especially for regular readers.

Good luck. No prizes, just for fun.

Lesser Whitethroat (?)

My thanks to Keith for confirming my ID.

A short while ago I was watching the House Sparrows actually forcing the Starlings to vacate the feeders when I happened to notice a different bird on the cables leading to the shed. At first glance I thought it was a Blackcap. Anyway I grabbed the camera which I always leave on multi shot and fired off a few seconds. It wasn't until I looked at the results and checked with my books that what I had seen best fitted the pictures and description of the Lesser Whitethroat. Definitely a first for my garden whatever it was.

A Sheepdog With Wings

Unfortunately there are no photos to go with this. It started early this morning as we returned from our walk. As I entered the gate I could hear a House Sparrow giving his alarm call. A male was sat on the woodwork nearby and as I walked past the corkscrew hazel I spotted a young sparrow on the ground. Papa was warning me to keep away, which I duly did.

Later in the morning while I was carrying out a bit of much needed pruning I saw a male House Sparrow with a couple of youngsters on the lane. The youngsters were hardly able to flutter their wings let alone fly and the male was behaving just like a sheepdog, weaving back and forth behind them as it ushered them across the road to shelter under the hedge on the opposite side of the road. A behaviour I have never seen before. Many parent birds will call to their youngsters to get them to move but this fellow was definitely gently forcing the young ones in the direction he wanted.

Friday at the Flicks - Hedgehog, Hoverflies

There hasn't been a deal of activity here recently. Also I have been experimenting with some of the effects in Corel Video Studio.

I only switch on the night recording equipment every so often to check that Hedgehogs are still about. This one had obviously got the scent of something but couldn't work out what.



It was only an hour ago I spotted that the hoverflies were attracted to the pond lilies, especially the white ones:


Have a great weekend observing the wildlife around you.

Wings for Wednesday

As I mentioned last Friday, Thursday afternoon found a large flock of gulls which spent a lot of time soaring and diving above the village. At first I though they may have been using any thermals from the built up area to gain height but on a longer observation they were diving about too much for that. In fact their flight activity was much the same as that observed when watching Swallows. On second thoughts I assumed they were feeding. I couldn't see anything but I guess the farming activity nearby may have been driving a lot of insect life up into the air.

Fortunately they continued their activities for a while after we had returned home from our afternoon perambulations so I was able to stand in the garden with the 50D and its 100-400mm lens. It was quite a feat to keep any birds in the viewfinder, never mind about focussed. As the gulls were flying all over the place I left the lens on auto focus though I did shorten the focussing range so it didn't have to hunt too much.











It looks to me as though the flock was Black Headed Gulls, or at least all those I managed to get in reasonable focus were.

While we were out and about I took a short piece of video with the Lumix TZ7:

Macro on Monday - Guess What

First the answer to last week's puzzle - not a cucumber plant, not a corgette but definately Corkscrew Hazel. The large photo was of the first fruits my plant has produced - hazel nuts? Congratulations and a virtual gold star to John (Hedgeland Tales) for his correct identification.

   


On to this week's puzzle:
Guess What:


For those who like a cryptic clue: Messy glue dish B..

No prizes - just for fun.