We've been watching a couple of courting blue tits all week. They've been hopping over each other, calling to each other and are seemingly inseparable. Today we saw a more sinister side of blue tit behaviour. These two (presumably male) blue tits were fighting ferociously on the ground. I had to intervene to make sure they didn't do some permanent damage to each other.

This great diving beetle was sitting on top of some weeds at the side of the pond for most of today. He looked OK - I think he was waiting for darkness to fly off.

Here are some really weird photos of a blue tit that had hit one of our windows just beforehand. Christine said he didn't hit the window hard - so it's difficult to explain why he flew to the hedge and hung upsidedown for 10 minutes. He was moving his head OK - in the second photo he's looking up at me as he heard my camera shutter. After 10 minutes he got himself together and flew off - the correct way up.

I managed to rescue this march moth from the pond. She'd probably only just flown into the water as she recovered quickly in the warm sun.

The warm sun also brought out this slow worm, but I had to run inside to get my phone to take a photo and when I got back, it had mostly got itself under cover.

I found this carpet beetle inside the house today.

While out on a run we almost stepped on this field mouse sitting in the middle of the forest path. A car had just passed so maybe it was stunned, but it recovered and shot into the undergrowth after a few seconds.

This solitary coot was swimming around the pond today.

This song thrush was hopping about in the garden today - joining the blackbirds, chaffinches and bramblings which are searching for insects in the grass and under fallen leaves.