Last night the temperature went down to 3^oC. It felt very wintry to us even indoors, so the insects and plants must have had quite a shock. The weather forecasts are promising temperatures up to 36^oC next week, which means we are getting quite big variations.

The young deer are running about up in the deer enclosure at the moment.

These red kites looked rather strange initially until we read that they are likely to be moulting their tail feathers at the moment. As the photo shows, the new feathers stick out at an angle as they grow. 

We saw this field vole venturing out while our cat was not watching.

This female red deer walked right past the house in the early evening.

Today we saw our first coal tit since May 24th. Previously, we'd thought they were always around, but they actually seem to visit the garden seasonally.

We've had 'Grey Wagtail' on our bird species list for some time now - but I had no photo to prove it and I was beginning to think I might have imagined seeing one here.

Finally, today we had another one catching insects from the jetty.

The kingfisher and several herons have been around consistently for the last couple of days too.

I'm not sure what is happening in this photo. I assume this is the male Red-backed Shrike with a juvenile, or could that be a female on the right and this is courtship before a second brood?

I don't like putting photos of dead things on here, but when it comes to fish, I'm unlikely to be able to get a photo of a live one. This poor soul (sole - geddit?) was floating in the pond today. We'll try to get an expert to identify it.

Today we had two Great-spotted Woodpeckers on our birch tree. I got a photo of one of them which looks like a juvenile to me.

The garden was full of young fledglings today including a couple of really cute bullfinches. Here's one with the proud father.

We also had a goldfinch make a short, extremely rare visit to our garden.

We were surprised to see four Red-backed Shrikes today; an adult male and female and two juveniles. We hadn't seen any signs of nesting, so it's really nice to find out that they've bred successfully here in Christophstal.

The picture shows the female and one of the juveniles. I took the photo through a window, so it isn't very good.

It's been almost a year since we last saw a nuthatch. Now we have two coming - this juvenile and a parent.

The verbena attracted a couple of nice Silver-washed Fritillaries too.

It was extremely rainy today. This picture sums up the day really.

I spent a lot of the day photographing birds as there were so many about.

It was nice to finally get some decent photos of a Chiffchaff. This one came close to the house and although it was flitting about, I managed to get a few shots decent enough to be 100% certain of the ID. The black legs and stubby wings differentiate it from the Willow Warbler.

I got some nice photos of the juvenile Hawfinch just as it started to rain.

We'd been seeing a bird flying back and forth between the hornbeams and our red-berried elder. In fact it was actually both a male and female Blackcap. Presumably they're taking these berries back to their nest, but they were eating them themselves too. They obviously really like these berries.

Hedge bindweed seems a strange thing to be writing about, but this one was flowering today in the front garden. The cold winters seem to keep the bindweeds under control so this one never seems to be anything more than a couple of flowers and half-a-dozen leaves. Even so, it provides a foodplant for the White Plume Moths we see occasionally, so it has some value.

While walking around the garden this afternoon, we disturbed a red deer who was couched up in the spinney.

Today there were two goldfinches on the thistles down by the pond, so the news is slowly spreading.

It was extremely hot today and this caused several ant nests to swarm. We had a number of jays fighting over the best anting positions.

We haven't seen a red squirrel for a while but this one visited our spruce today to eat some of the fresh cones at the top.

I thought I had another new species of bird in the garden today, with this Serin. Unfortunately, when I looked at my photos of the 'Yellowhammer', I realised I'd misidentified a Serin as a Yellowhammer back in July 2014. So, Serin replaces Yellowhammer in our species list.

I saw a strange-looking bird in one of the distant conifers. As soon as it turned into profile, it was obviously a hawfinch - but a juvenile as it didn't have any of the usual coloration.

There have been a lot of fledglings in the garden today. At one stage I counted 17 juvenile greenfinches in the hawthorn. The parents seem to have left them and they seemed to be doing alright.

This juvenile song thrush looked a bit less happy though. He was hanging round the garden all day, seemingly not knowing what to do with himself.

I'd stopped taking photos of the red-backed shrikes as I'd taken so many already, but the female landed in the hawthorn close to the house this afternoon and I liked this photo so I've put it up.

In the late afternoon I managed to see and photograph our 62nd garden bird species: a Spotted Flycatcher. I wouldn't have been able to identify it from looking at the photos alone - it was its behaviour that gave it away. It perched at the top of our birch tree and occasionally took off, caught a fly in flight and returned to the same perch several times - just like the textbooks say they do!

There have been several herons at the pond all week. This picture shows a successful heron with a very large fish going down his throat. This took some time and must have been quite uncomfortable.

The temperature is cooler now and the pond has returned to its normal, darker colour.

We don't get many goldfinches around the house, so this loner feeding on thistle seed down by the pond was nice to see.

We have noticed the water in the pond changing colour over the past few days. It is now quite milky. I took this photo today. Reading up on this online, it seems to be due to a bacterial bloom. The fish are still swimming about, so hopefully they will get through the heatwave and the water will become fresher.

Last night was easily the hottest night of the year so far. It didn't fall below 21^oC. Even though there was a nearly full moon, the moth trapping was excellent. There were at least four new macro moth species for the garden including Stegania cararia, which is not usually found at our altitude. There were also a few of these Chrysopa perla lacewings around the trap which are really attractive when you look up close.

The verbena flowers on our patio continue to be a hit with the local insect life. In the late morning, this High Brown Fritillary visited for a short while.

There was a very noisy family of greenfinches at the bird table this morning. The adult was showing the fledglings the sunflower seeds, but they still wanted to be fed rather than doing it themselves. The adult eventually flew off keeping the sunflower seed to itself.

It was incredibly hot today so we spent most of the day hiding from the sun. I tried to take some more photos of the swifts, swallows and house martins skimming the pond. I have a picture in mind and I'm getting closer, but there's still some work to do here to perfect my technique. It's fascinating to see how wide the swifts can open their beaks to scoop up the water.

Our cat was behaving strangely while looking out of a window. She was watching this Purple Emperor butterfly taking moisture from our flower boxes.

As I was passing our impressive Verbena plant I noticed a strange looking insect which looked like a clearwing moth. I managed to get some photos and identified it as Synanthedon cephiformis. This is a real specialist for the Black Forest and feeds on the wood and bark of silver fir. It is very unusual to come across clearwing moths without pheromone lures, so this was a really unexpected find.

It was a very warm night and I put the moth trap out. Unfortunately, it is almost a full moon too, so the trap wasn't as full as it could have been. Even so, I had a new hawk moth for the garden: an Eyed Hawk-moth.

We've both been bitten by horse flies at some stage over the last week and today we were buzzed by this 'beauty': a Dark Giant Horsefly, Tabanus sudeticus. This is a seriously impressive animal and I wouldn't want to be bitten by her. They are meant to be quite rare, which is probably a good thing.

Even though it was well over 30^oC in the shade, there was a heron at the pond almost all day. He was quite successful and the fish stocks in there must be getting depleted now.