A few short safaris around the garden

The Safari is laid up after another hand operation at the mo so we've not been able to get out into the wider world and we've only just about been able to manhandle the small macro lens. For much of the time we've been incapacitated the weather has been pants, more like the middle of March than the end of June...and yes our heating came on early morning on 2nd and 3rd of July - that shouldn't happen, it's supposed to be summer!!! But for a few short days the sun shone and the wind didn't blow too hard.

A couple of days before going into hospital we were up early and spotted two Coal Tits on the feeders, an adult and a juvenile, where had they come from they don't nest nearby, and were the first of the year here and only our fourth record at our new Base Camp. They left to the south and we weren't expecting to see them again but a couple of hours later the juvenile returned on its own.

After all the bad weather the warm sunny days brought out a multitude of insects in the garden. Solitary bees have been very few and far between this year, indeed our 'bee hotel' has no occupants at all, so it was good to see a tiny Furrow Bee, one of the Lasioglossum morio group of very similar species that need more than 'normal' macro photos to identify them to species level. This one is in a Common Catsear flower.

Another one resting on the nearby fruit bushes had alraedy been busy collecting pollen. It's having a drink of something too, nectar?

Also on the fruit bushes was a black and orange blob which on closet insection turned out to be a ladybird, of unknown species as it hadn't yet aquired any spots, which had just emerged from its nymphal skin - we've never seen that before

Also nearby were several froghoppers were secreted in the base of the leaves, probably Common Froghoppers.

When we say nearby we do mean very close by as the vegetated part of garden is only about 40 feet long and twenty wide. At the back of the garden there are some overhanging twigs and small branches from our rear neighbours garden which we are very thankful for as they provide landing sites for 'our' House Sparrows; and Coal Tits - see above! Our neighbours to the left have 'inherited' that awful plastic grass and have no living stuff at all, our neighbours to the right have a well vegetated garden but we are separted by the thickness of two garages. An unknown neighbour feeds the local Grey Squirrels all manner of good things which they bring to our lawn and flower boarders to cache for later.

As much as we don't like Grey Squirrels and would much rather there was a local population of Red Squirrels, which is never going to happen, we do prefer them to next door's (left) plethora of flamin cats, they've got a sh*t load of them...and most of them do their sh*t in our garden digging up our cornfield annual meadow in the process - we hate them and so does the Mutt.

Moths have been in very short supply this year, we've only had the trap out twice and caught precicely nowt. Now that we're incapacitated it's not likely to come out for some time so we've tried wine ropes for a change - this plan has gone awry as an mothds they atrract will be on the wing long after we've gone to bed seeing as how it's mid-summer, we'll keep them refreshed and as the days shorten see if anything is attracted to them. Mothing is no restricted to finding dayflying species or chancing upon roosting ones. Our dayfliers include the tiny but lovely Mint Moth, shame they aren't the same size as a Red Admiral butterfly.

Our other dayflier is a much more specialised species and is listed as Nationally Scarce, the Currant Clearwing.Despie the bad weather most of the year we found our first one on exactly the same day as last year - allowing for the 29th of February - how mad is that. We usually see just one or two basking on the Blackcurrant bush's leaves.

But this time found one sucking nectar from the adjacent Blackberrry flowers. We weren't sure if they were one of those species who's adults have no mouthparts and can't feed - obviously not!

We even found a pair mating - it's amazing what you can see if you lurk around the shrubbery for long enough!

Still taking random pics of whatever settled long enough to focus on w got a Broad Centurion, one of the Soldierflies. There mere many more of these in and around our little mini-meadow than in the shrubbery.

There are very few large hoverflies about and  we were pleased to get a shot of Myathropa florea, the ammusingly nicknamed 'Batman' Hoverfly.

Bumble bees do our head in, we never seem to be able to get a good pic, is it because they never stay still and their eyes are so black and lacking contrast with the rest of their head you often don't get a highlight in them...and then theres the identification nightmare of some very similar species. This one is Buff Tailed Bumble Bee.

While concentrating on this bee something much smaller under a leaf beneath the flowers caught our eye

It looks like an aphid crossed with some other type of true bug. We only got this one shot and can't tell if those thick black things are part of its forelegs or antennae. It's obviously actively moving, it moved quite quickly, normally aphids sit fairly still...any ideas anyone? 

Just a bit too high up in our Apple tree we found an old favourite Pimpla rufipes on the hunt for moth caterpillars to parasitise.

Meanwhile back lower down we saw another ladybird emerging from its nyphal skin

The Bramble flowers were pulling in most of the insects including this Common Yellow Faced Bee, you can just about see a bit of the yellow face in the top pic. They are miniscule compared to the nearby bumble bees, only 5mm long at most.

The Bramble and Blackcurrant  bushes' broad leaves make idea look out perches for a variety of flies including the very numerous Greenbottle, Lucilia sericata

And another similar species we don't know the name of which is a stunning bronze colour. We don't recall seeing this one last summer.

Could they be male and female? If so why have we never seen the bronze ones before??? The do have a greeny sheen in some lights but in dull conditions they are definitely bronze.

As alluded to earlier most of the hoverflies were seeing are the smaller species and even then not that many of them. We think this one is Syritta pipiens...about 8mm long.

Out on the hunt for hoverflies was a species of predatory wasp Ectemnius cavifrons with it's distinctively weird antennae

Another predatory wasp we came across turned out to be the Nationally Scarce Gorytes laticinctus.

Look at those eyes! What and how do they see compared to our eyes, we're sure we wouldn't recognise the seen in front of us if we could see through their eyes.

It's munching an unfortunate victim

Thi species has apparently been expanding its range northwards this century and we've added a dot to the most up-to-date map, the second most northerly so far and the most northerly on the western side of the country, the most northery being on the other side of the pennines somewhere around the York area. We're sure they're overlooked and there are many more to be found well to the north of us - eyes peeled folks!

What a fantastic couple of days on safari no more than 50 feet from the back door. Look after the little things and they'll look after the bigger things. And we all need to start looking after the little things, there's an Insect Apocalypse underway and if they go down they'll take us with them. Something many of us can do is as easy as not mowing some of your lawn. Take part in #NoMowMay, follow it with #letitbloom injune and then our new hashtag #HelptheBeesflyinJuly. We keep a mown edge around our wildflower area so you can tell it's managed and supposed to be like that. With the aid of a paper bag we go out in the local parks and countyside areas and collect wildflower seed to sow once we've cut the meadow at the end of the summer making sure we let  the hay dry and any seeds fall to the ground before raking it up and composting it. The more different species you have the better as some will flower in some years and not others, a wider diversity will mean it won't look the same two summers running and that's part of the excitement - what's going to come up this summer?

Yellow Rattle, being a hemi-parasite, is good for reducing the vigour of the grasses and we would recommend getting some in your meadow.

Those few days were the end of summer, it's now back to unseasonally cold, sometimes wet and very very windy the latter being very damaging to the garden. Please can we have some warm calm days back please...the sooner the better.

Where to next? Our hand is recovering from the operation nicely so we might be able to get a bit further afield next week - physiotherapy appointments permitting.

In the meantime let us know who you've discovered hiding in plain sight in your outback

June arrives and so does the rain

The Safari has been mostly in the garden at Base Camp this week but we have been around a couple of local sites too.

We've had a little success with the moth trap but nothing to really get the pulse racing. To be fair the best catches this week have been non-moths like this tiny Caenis mayfly of which there were two on Monday morning.

When the sun has shone, which hasn't been as often as we'd like this week, we've been down to the bottom of the garden where it's a bit wilder (Wifey says too wild!). Up there we came across the first 2-Spot Ladybird we've seen this year, not seen many ladybirds of any description yet, this one was a very small individual.

With not much happening we took ourselves back indoors for a brew where we found this crane fly bouncing around the kitchen window trying to smash the panes of glass to get out. Once it had come to rest we saw that it wasn't one of your 'normal' types of Crane Fly but from the family of Fold Winged Flies, Ptychopteridae.

Later in the afternoon another Mint Moth was hanging round the pot plants..

The following morning we had a 'click & collect' grocery shop to pick up from the store. The van from which your shopping is parked at the top end of the car park and this morning there was a queue of cars waiting their turn so naturally we joined the end of it hoping it wouldn't be a long wait. We turned the engine off and wound the window down. There's not much in the way of vegetation anywhere near the store but the car park does have a few bushes which attract the local House Sparrow flock so we were listening to them chirruping away in the dense cover when we heard another call which sounded like a Coal Tit. We heard it again and it still sounded like a Coal Tit, can't be there's not a tree for miles and even further to the nearest conifers. Then a Coal Tit appeared in a little gap in the side of the line of bushes and hopped off only to be followed by a second - how mad is that - what a great shop car park tick. The Swift, or was there more than one, tazzing round the eaves of the terraced houses backing on to the car park was great to watch too. 

After the shopping as safely stashed away at Base Camp we set off with the mutt for a wander round Woodland Gardens and Heron's Reach. As soon as we entered the wood this huge fungus caught our eye. Must be the best part of a metre from end to end.

We're useless at fungi so if anyone can put a name to it let us know. The rest of the walk was mainly Blackcaps and Chiffchaffs but we did hear a Ring Necked Parakeet high above the old military pill-box  in the wood, could they have a nest somewhere up there we were there again today and heard one calling from the same place on the way out and the way back.

Mammals were represented by both Lion and Tiger but no Elephants as we peered over the zoo fence. The mutt's nose tells him there's something interesting on the other side of the fence but he hasn't a clue what as he's not tall enough to see over - probably just as well! What we didn't expect to see was a Rabbit a little further along the path and this side of the fence, can't remember the last time we saw one of those round there, if indeed we ever have.

We had a look under the usual amphibian refugia finding just a few Toads and nothing that we 'wanted' - the ground was very dry even under cover.

Back on the path a movement low in the undergrowth on the far side alerted our attention. Another Rabbit and a young one at that. Certainly wasn't expecting to see a second round there and this one was a good 200 metres from the first so almost definitely from another family.

Some sunshine brought out a few insects like this Speckled Wood butterfly but far fewer than we would have expected especially bees of which there were hardly any.

Wednesday saw the first appreciable rain for several weeks although despite it being prolonged and quite heavy it still hasn't done any more than dampen the ground.

In an attempt to attract the over-flying families of Starlings into the garden we've been putting mealworms out. Not a Starling in sight, they've even stopped flying over. But as soon as we put any mealworms out now the local Magpies and this individual Herring Gull are right on them, the gull having to do a precarious balancing act to get its beak in the tub..

Also seen in the garden on a wet Wednesday were a second family of Greenfinches and the Great Tits are feeding young in our House Sparrow terrace - very late starting this year, they'd fledged by now this time last year.

Thursday finally gave us some moths and not Heart & Darts.

Angle Shades

Treble Lines

Setaceous Hebrew Character

Also in the trap were a couple of Caddis Flies, this larger one is a Limnopphilus sp

A much smaller one is as yet unidentified.

After breakfast we were down on the beach with the mutt. A few Moon Jellyfish had been washed up. No other species of jellyfish though although in recent days others have been reporting lots of Sea Gooseberries.

We also found a smallish Common Starfish alive and well and cruising slowly round one of the puddles left by the tide very close to the seawall. Also found nearby was this deceased Thornback Ray, another angling victim no doubt.. Juts look at the shadow of the spines along its tail - fearsome!

Along the cliffs we came across our first juvenile Pied Wagtail, waiting around a while we saw both the parents but no other youngsters.

Around the garden in the afternoon we concentrated on watching the bees

Early Bumble Bee

But also found some other little things like this Running Spider, Philodromus sp, and by eck could it run it was well wick even over the vertical surface of a pane of window glass!!!

and this tiny green true bug just a few millimetres long.

The bee we hoped to find didn't turn up. An apparently all black one that won't keep still.

We did finally catch up with it at the weekend - do we still have weekends? A Leaf  Cutting Bee, probably Megachile centuncularis.

Being photo-bombed by a Tree Bee

We've seen both the male and the female but haven't seen the female carrying leaves yet although in the bottom pic it's collecting pollen. 

On Sunday we had an early morning wander round the Rock Gardens seeing a pair of Whitethroats feeding young and another male singing from the opposite end of the field.

Back at the bottom of the garden we came across this small black wasp. It's believed to be one of the five (or six - depending on which taxonomist you read) Pemphredon species although a profile pic would have been useful to rule out other genera but it didn't hang around long enough for that and we haven't seen it since.

If it is one of those none of them have been recorded in the Fylde before.

As dusk fell we had our first House Sparrow on the new millet feeder in the back garden. Probably the same male that came a couple of times when the feeder dispensed suet pellets but hasn't been seen since. All we need now is for it to come back during the day to have his photo taken, and we'd be quite happy for him to bring his family along too - we need them - - we jumped in with both feet and got 17kg of red millet delivered.

All in all a pretty action packed week on safari.

Where to next? With lockdown being eased even further  we're going to be a bit more adventurous and have some further flung safaris planned.

In the meantime let us know who's Been visiting your outback.

Remember to stay safe and socially distant while enjoying the wildlife round your way.