'False'

The garden moth trap remains poor. When we have cloudy days, it's been clearing to cold nights, and when we have warm sunny days, it stays clear and cools quickly at night. Just like every spring, but we always forget that there is a really quite crap period between late March/early April and late to mid May. I've not bothered tonight as it's cold and windy, and anyway I've got be up and out early for a routine MRI scan.

The moth trap did yield a full on tick for me on Sunday night though .. but this is absolutely down to me not taking enough notice of them and/or bothering to write them down. So this one has probably appeared in the trap many times before but evaded being recorded.

Limnephilus auricula

I also managed another full on tick in the garden on Saturday, one that I have been expecting to see some time but not in the garden.

Steatoda nobilis - Noble False Widow Spider

So it's 'noble' and false. Sounds like the vast majority of the House of Lords.

Seeing as I saw a new spider, I thought I may as well share a couple of other from the garden ..

A seven-legged Nursery Web Spider

Garden Spider - this one is actually from 23/04, lots growing in the garden now

This afternoon I had a bit of a play with the P950 on a quick walk. The step-down ring I ordered turned up and I had a go whilst out, but with the big difference in camera lens diameter versus Raynox lens there is more vignetting than on the P600, and when I've zoomed through that the magnification is huge. So it's a case of finding a balance and working out whether the DCR-150 or DCR-250 lens works best. I managed a few shots though ... like these ...

It looks like even with a fair bit of cropping I should be able to get more than useable images. It's just going to take time and practice as it always does with a new camera.

Whilst out I pointed it at a few vertebrates.

Great Tit

Yellowhammer - some way off down the road

Common Buzzard

Brown Hare

This last one is not the best shot I've ever taken, but it's the best (only?) shot I've ever taken of a Hare and the first one I remember seeing around here. This was at full zoom and a quick point and shoot as I rounded a bend and saw it. It very quickly lolloped off.

Aphid munchers

Superb warm sunny weather yesterday had me sitting around in the garden drinking tea and watching the world go by. In between cups of tea I pointed the camera at a few of the visitors. We've had constant squawking from up to three Starling broods just lately, with the recently fledged young chasing their parents and constantly begging for food.

 juv Starling

I've carried on topping up the feeders through the spring this year for a change, thinking it might help the parents, and it's worked to some extent. 

Goldfinch looking smart, but .....

 

... Great Tit and ...

... Blue Tit, both looking haggard from the effort of rearing young.

Robin going for a traditional caterpillar and ignoring the feeders, ...

... and Dunnock foraging around the lawn as usual.

Whilst pottering about the garden I also found two hoverfly maggots muching their way through aphids. And there are lots of aphids this year so good luck to the various larvae that will feed on them - should be good for ladybirds and lacewings too.

Probably Meliscaeva auricollis, living on aphids on Wood Avens

A Syrphus sp., living on aphids on a viburnum bush

I also found this tiny jumper in the house - new for the house and garden list, but hard to get a decent snap!

Euophrys frontalis

Tits

Tits, Nuts & Painted Lady

There - that post title should attract a few inadvertent hits. Mostly today I have moping about the house feeling sorry for myself with a massive banging headache. I wouldn't mind if alcohol had been involved, but it wasn't. So instead of driving off somewhere to enjoy the wildlife like I should have done, I had to make do with watching the locals on my various feeders. However I managed to miss the best bird of the day with the camera - a superb male Great Spotted Woodpecker (garden rarity) briefly landed in our tree and had a look at the nuts before heading off. Oriental Laughing Collared Dove Greenfinches Goldfinch Great Tit Tit on my seed Tit on my nuts Tit on the neighbour's plums Aside from the nice tit action, I was most surprised to see this nectaring on cultivated heather: Painted Lady Pretty sure I've never seen one this late in the year before.

Garden birds

Today was mostly spent in Leicester City centre to make a few purchases with the kids that were not possible at Fosse Park or any of the main supermarkets. I hardly ever go into the centre these days unless beer/curry are involved. This was followed by another session trying to get Alex riding a stabiliserless bike.
Suffice to say the there was no time for getting out and about for more camera practice so I had to make do with some of the garden feeder visitors. Click for enlargement.