Friday, May 03, 2013

April in our wildlife garden

 

NB All photographs on this blog are copyright Valerie Harrison, if you wish to use ANY of my photographs please ask first!dead-sparrows

We started the month under several feet of snow and when we started to clear it we discovered several dead sparrows

gsw-2

Great-spotted Woodpecker

blackcap

Male Blackcap

chiffchaff

Chiffchaff

Aphodius-prodromus-3

Beetle Aphodius-prodromus

egg

Egg shell

female-blackcap-(2)

Female Blackcap

female-blackcap

 

fritillary

Just one Snakes-head Fritillary in the orchard!

frogspawn

Most of the frogspawn has died after being under the snow for so long, although there are a few survivors!

goldfinches

Lots of Goldfinches about

gsw

Great-spotted Woodpecker

heather-1

Most of the garden is badly damaged from the snow but the heather garden soon perked up and is buzzing with bumblebees

hoverfly

Our first hoverfly of the year Syrphus sp

Nicrophorus-humator-1

Black Sexton Beetle - Nicrophorus humator with passengers!

Nicrophorus-humator-3

The passengers are gamasid mites, which cluster between the body segments, under the wing-cases and anywhere else that the beetle cannot easily reach with its legs to dislodge them .The mites are thought to suck fluid from the beetles but this activity seems relatively harmless and many of them may be just 'hitching a ride' as the beetles fly off to new habitats in search of carrion.

primroses

Primroses

red-squirrel

Not sure who did this but the Red Squirrel is making the most of it!

tunnels

After the snow finally melted it exposed a lot of tunnels in the grass. I presume they are either mole or vole tunnels that would normally be underground but because of the snow they are on the surface

water-beetle

Water beetle

NB All photographs on this blog are copyright Valerie Harrison, if you wish to use ANY of my photographs please ask first!

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