That Fuzzy Fly

While cutting the grass this afternoon two Bee Flies hovered nearby so I grabbed the 350D and took a few photos, manual focus. This was the best of the bunch - much cropped:



Thanks again to Jan and Pete Smith for the identification.

Wings on Wednesday

A Friend For Life
Most days the Pheasant visits the garden. He always keeps an eye on the kitchen window. If he sees me I can guarantee that within seconds he will be outside the back door waiting for me to scatter some peanuts.



Mrs Great Tit
I have seen the female Great Tit visit the Birdy Bistro a few times. Not only had she lost many head feathers but also many on one side of her face. From the latest nest box views she seems to be growing new feathers so it won't be long before it will be difficult to tell which is which.



Soggy Ladybird
As I was checking for wildlife in and around the pond I saw a tiny ladybird which was struggling on the surface of the water. I managed to fish it out and after photographing this tiny two spot ladybird I set it down in the sunshine to dry out its wings.



A Fuzzy Moth  (which turned out to be a Fuzzy Fly)
Was it a bee or was it a moth? It looks like a bee. It's bee size. It behaves like a humming bird. I guess it was a Hummingbird Hawk Moth. I spent ages trying to photograph it. I only had the Lumix with me and that doesn't have manual focus. The moth seemed to be playing games with me. It would often hover a couple of feet from my face as if waiting to be photographed but zoom sideways or backwards as soon as I pressed the shutter. So - the best I managed was this fuzzy photo:

My grateful thanks to Pete Smith and Jan for correcting my erroneous identification. What I had spent about a quarter of an hour trying to photograph was a Bee Fly (Bombylius major). They are amazing in the way they can hover in one place and dart around in any direction in the blink of an eye.



Blackcap
While I was sat in the garden on Monday enjoying the unseasonal 18C sunshine I spotted the Blackcap visit the Birdy Bistro. That may well be the last time I will see it. No sighting at all yesterday.

Mrs GT Examines the Nest Box

The female Great Tit spent about a quarter of an hour examining the nest box this morning. This is the complete raw recording so be warned - it is a lot longer than my usual videos. Several times she makes the next box flutter where she spreads her wings. Also she examines every part of the box including the hole the camera peeps through.



Mr GT turned up a short while later for a very brief visit.

I was hoping to set up a video feed from the box but after struggling for hours over the weekend trying to get two different systems working I had to give up. The problem seems to be making my router accept an outgoing video stream.

Macro on Monday - Guess What + The Sleeper Awakes

Congratulations and      to Adrian, Jan and Keith for identifying the spider legs shown in close up last week.

      

I'm not sure which orb spider that is. Its web is next to a trellis and in each square of the trellis is a web. In the centre of each web is a smaller version of the spider. One is very tiny but all have the same black colour and white markings.

On to the new puzzle photo.
Guess What:


Clue: It will be quite a while before these 'a-wooing go'.


The Sleeper Awakes

Every night for the past two weeks Bobby has been checking to see whether there are any interesting spiky creatures about. About 8.30pm on Saturday he suddenly started wagging his tail and there for the first time this year was a Hedgehog which had woken from its Winter hibernation period. Last night I put out some crushed unsalted peanuts and soon after darkness had fallen there it was. It didn't move from the dish until every last piece had been eaten.



It will have lost a lot of weight during its Winter sleep and some extra high protein food will help it gain weight ready for the breeding season.

Blackcap

The male Blackcap is still visiting the bird table. For three days it has been on and off the table all day feeding for about a minute each time. I wonder whether it has recently returned to this country and is making up for weight lost on the journey. Unless there are more than one - difficult to tell. No sign of a female as yet.

Saturday Cinema - Blackcap

I was sitting here reading my RSS feeds when I noticed what I thought was a Coal Tit land on the bird table. I wasn't going to start the recorder but for some reason changed my mind. Am I pleased I did as the visitor turned out to be a male Blackcap. Last year I had a brief visit by a female to the Birdy Bistro but this is the first time I have seen a male.



The bird table used to be next to the Birdy Bistro which is fairly close to the kitchen window to give me a good view of the visiting birds. Last year I decided to move it to a spot nearer the bottom of the garden to see whether some of the shyer birds would use it. Now I have the camera in place I can see what a variety of visitors there are. As well as having a holder with suet balls I always have one on the bird table and it has proved to be very popular.

The Blackcap (Sylvia atricapilla) is a warbler. The male having the distinctive black cap and pale ring round the eyes. The female has a chestnut coloured cap and pale eye ring which makes it easy to distinguish the sexes.They can be found in deciduous woodlands with thick undergrowth and in mature gardens and parks. Most are Summer visitors though a small number overwinter having migrated here from northern mainland Europe. Nests are built in low shrub and contains 3 to 6 eggs.

Friday at the Flicks - Flutter - Bird Table - Nest Box

I have only seen two butterflies so far this year but that is two more than I normally see in March. This Small Tortoiseshell was resting on a Grape Hyacinth:



For a time to time I have considered fixing a camera near the Bird Table to observe just how many different birds visit it. Wednesday was a nice sunny day so I finally got Round Tuit. As usual what was planned to be an hours task took most of the day as I tried out a couple of cameras and different lenses. I do have a spare outdoor camera which I tried first but the results were poor so I opted for an indoor camera fitted in a waterproof housing. This is the first trial recordings: The wire mesh is to keep out the larger birds and give the smaller ones a chance to get their share of the food. (silent)



Finally - a few days ago I happened to capture both Great Tits making further investigations of the camera nest box.: One of them is the one with a bald head seen earlier. It looks as though new feathers are starting to grow. (silent and longer than my usual clips at 3min 30sec)



Have a great weekend observing the wildlife around you wherever you are.

Wings on Wednesday - Bumble Bee

Every time the Sun shines out come various insects including the bumble bees. This one was out on a rather cool day and I think it was having problems getting its wing muscles up to the temperature needed for flight.





That would have been a bit of a problem as it needs a wing muscle temperature of 30C to fly and the air temperature was around 8C.  The best it could do was to crawl along the piece of wood it had landed on.