'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.

Life In The Garden 28/08/2011

Been very lazy today; a good lie in, catching up on a couple of bits off of the Sky+ box (Torchwood and Dr Who), and going nowhere with the on-off crapness of the day's weather. Pottered in the garden a bit, and here's some random stuff:

Garden Spider

Rhingia campestris

Birch Catkin Bug (Kleidocerys resedae) - not a great shot but you get the gist.

This is new for me and the garden.

A currently unknown sawfly larva - one of a few I found feeding on the small garden birch. Any ideas?

Pill Woodlouse

Common Wasp

And a couple of moths not from today:

Firethorn Leaf Miner - found c20 of these resting on the garden fence yesterday afternoon, and I get the odd one in the traps so one of the neighbours must have something edible in their garden.

Pale Eggar

Life in the garden, 12/09/2009

Nichola was working today, leaving me with the kids who were happy to play out with their mates in the glorious hot sunshine. I also had a few bit to do, but as some of this included basic gardening chores I spent time pottering about the garden with one camera or other.

Birdwise the only interest was a singing Chiffchaff (making it seem even more summery), Bullfinch and Goldfinch amongst the commoner visitors. I kept looking to the wide open blue space above but saw precisely zero hirundines, swifts or buzzards of any variety.

Butterflies were back; I saw Comma, Painted Lady, Small Tortoiseshell, Red Admiral, Large White and Peacock all feeding on a large overhanging buddleia of some sort.









The same bush was also alive with bees of various sorts.


Busy


Buzzy

Quite a few hoverflies in the garden today aswell on various flowers.


Eupeodes corollae maybe


Rhingia campestris


Lobelia

Whilst out there I found a freshly dead shrew - pretty sure it is a Common Shrew. Couldn't see any obvious damage, though a cat still seems the mostly likely reason for it being on the other side of life.


c100mm nose to tail, c60mm body length alone


Just about showing red-tipped teeth, typical of the, er, red-tipped tooth shrews

The boys were excited to find some larvae, these turned out to be Rose Sawfly Arge ochropus



The garden is pretty much covered with spider webs at the moment, on every plant/shrub and in virtually every open space between sprigs. Mainly Garden Spiders, appropriately.





In between, the mightly LCFC scored another home win - it's now a year since we last lost a home game in the league. Warm clear sunny days are great, the inevitable clear cool nights are crap for moth trapping .......