I've heard a kingfisher a few times over the last week but hadn't seen one. Today this fine specimen was hunting opposite the house.

We're having daily visits from various red-backed shrikes at the moment. Today was the turn of this male.

There were lots of butterflies about today. There were two wood whites taking minerals from the same empty plant pot as the one from last week. Here are a selection of photos. I'm including a photo of a day lily as I had a spare place for another image. These lilies were in the garden when we moved in and have flowered reliably, albeit briefly, every year.

It's been raining all day and I wasn't expecting to get much for the diary today, but it started well with a visit from a spotted nutcracker - the first one we've seen this year. It looks like it is going to be another bumper year for hazelnuts as our tree is fully laden.

I couldn't quite work out what was going on with the three buzzards that flew over the house in the early afternoon. If they were a family group, they weren't getting along too well as you can see from this photo of two of them.

We've had a particularly aggressive chiffchaff in the garden for the past couple of days. Today he was again busy chasing off much bigger birds.

We haven't seen any of our foxes recently, but the medium-sized young one was back today. This one isn't as ticky as the small one and he looks to be quite happy.

I'm finishing up with a photo of a young greenfinch. There have been some big groups of greenfinches flying around and at one point we had 10 on and around the bird table - all first-year juveniles.

We went shopping this morning and were delayed by 100s of tiny froglets around the car. These have been around for over a week now.

I spent the early afternoon scything the bracken in our meadow. It is slowly getting under control as it wasn't as bad as previous years.

I was really impressed by the number of wild flowers that are up there too. Here's a photo showing an area which has a particularly good display of wood scabious and tufted vetch.

I discovered a small elephant hawk-moth caterpillar which looked like final instar. I left him up there as he was doing so well.

Chopping some of the bracken away revealed this spooky looking fungus. This is octopus stinkhorn, Clathrus archeri, a non-native species from Australia/New Zealand.

Finally, just before the heavens opened with a spectacular and scary thunderstorm, this camberwell beauty posed nicely on our birch tree.

One of the young red backed shrikes has been coming close to the house to see what all the other birds are doing around the bird tables. He seems to be on his own now.

It was the hottest day of the year so far - reaching 33^oC in the shade (although our thermometer in direct sun showed 49^oC!!

The marjoram in our garden is in full flower and is buzzing with honey bees, flies and butterflies. Here are some photos of some of the butterflies.

A family of four red-backed shrikes were hunting around the house today.

The wind finally dropped today and it was very warm. Perfect weather for butterflies, but there were very few about. I did record our 44th garden butterfly species today though - a wood white. This is a butterfly I've been wanting to see for some time.

I've added a photo of a marbled white too as this one was posing nicely on one of our scabious flowers.

Another day, another beetle. This is quite a common species, Sermylassa halensis, although I've never seen one before. 

I've included a green shield bug photo too. Extremely common - I haven't bothered recording them until now.

I've been neglecting the birds so I spent a bit of time photographing them this afternoon. The highlights were two juvenile great spotted woodpeckers both perched on our bird table at the same time and this juvenile green woodpecker who was eating ants off our driveway. The green woodpecker has been extremely difficult to photograph and I had to use my Ninja photographing skills to hold absolutely still to get these two shots.

The other bird photos are of a white wagtail, a moulting jay and a goldfinch on a spear thistle in our thistle garden.

It's been extremely warm and windy today. A bit too windy for butterflies but nevertheless there were a few marbled whites, silver-washed fritillaries and this high brown fritillary.

The Aruncus dioica is flowering spectacularly in our garden and it is attracting lots of insects. We watched two rose chafers enjoying the pollen/nectar. In the afternoon I spotted what I thought was a routine wasp beetle. I've checked my books and now I'm pretty certain this is actually Clytus lama, a much rarer species. This is a red list species in the north of Germany, but is 'least concern' in southern Germany.

We spotted a dead mole down by our car. We've had mole hills in the garden but hadn't recorded moles in our species list as we hadn't seen any actual animals up until now.

We went for a run in the woods early this morning and saw this scarlet tiger moth.

We saw our first fledgling hawfinch of the year today. Here it is being fed by one of its parents. It's a terrible photo as I took it through a closed window.

We saw our first female red backed shrike of the year today. She kept herself out of sight most of the time, so this was the best photo I managed.

We've had lots of young foxes visiting every day for the last week or so, usually at night but sometimes in broad daylight - this was a little after 4 o'clock this afternoon. He's got a few ticks, which is not surprising.

We had quite a few bird sightings today including four ravens which flew directly over the house. This photo was taken a bit later when one of the four returned to the valley.

We wrapped up the day with this juvenile robin.

This fly was hovering near our sheds today. It was flying in an unusual way - a bit like a hummingbird hawk-moth. I was surprised to ID it as Hemipenthes maurus, a species I've recorded before on the Kuglerhang in Horb, on limestone - and completely unexpected here.

The first of our aconites has flowered and is now very colourful.

Finally, a few beetles. The first is a simple seven-spot ladybird, Coccinella septempunctata - really common and a species I've just ignored up until now. The second pair of beetles are 14-spot ladybirds, Propylea quatuordecimpunctata. And finally, an easy one - a striped shield bug. There are a lot of these in the garden at the moment - the most we've ever seen.

I've got a few things to identify from today. Firstly, there were a couple of these beetles in the garden today. *UPDATE* I've finally identified this as Cryptocephalus moraei. I do still need to ID this larva on one of our cabbage thistles. I know from our lily beetle infestation that it is quite a common tactic for larvae to cover themselves in poo to deter predators so that is what is going on here. It'll probably be difficult to get an ID for this larva.