Rainfall: 31.7mm

Temp High: 30.1^oC on 20th

Temp Low: 4.5^oC on 14th

Temp Average: 16.8^oC 

From my new office location I'm able to monitor any activity around the pond while I'm working. This gray wagtail has been there for a couple of mornings this week and this time I got some photos. Looks like breakfast is a backswimmer.

This male red-backed shrike was hunting around our farmer's garden.

On my early morning run, I was sad to see this garden dormouse on the forest path. He looks reasonably fresh. Not sure what happened here, but it's been very dry and we always see a lot of dead voles and shrews on the forest paths in hot weather. Small mammals have problems regulating their body temperature.

10 metres away from the dormouse, I was stopped in my tracks by the familiar smell of a stinkhorn. I had a quick look around the smelly area and tracked down this vile specimen.

Early this morning, a 1st year song thrush was catching slugs around our pond. Thank-you.

The red-backed shrikes continue to hunt in and around the garden. We haven't seen any youngsters yet.

Towards the evening, I spotted these two majestic weevils, Larinus sturnus. The male has a very long nose, but the female's is even longer - apparently so they can access the seeds in thistle heads (stop calling me big nose).

We found a new plant in our stone garden. This is small toadflax. It must have come with the soil or stones that were brought in last year.

We spotted this huge mouse on our peanut feeder early in the afternoon. It's probably just a well-fed yellow-necked mouse - but it really was extremely large and seemed very tame. I was a couple of metres away taking photos and he wasn't bothered at all. Presumably, being of heft has rendered him fearless.

This honeybee was completely covered in pollen while visiting our musk mallow flowers.

I took some photos of some diving beetles (Acilius sulcatus) in the pond so I could ID them for the first time.

This female wolf spider was guarding her egg sac in the front garden.

Here's a photo on a large skipper. There were lots of skippers around today.

I'm finishing up with yet another bee which I need to ID. He was deep into the sage flowers so I might not have captured all the important ID factors.

We had a little bit of rain over the past couple of days after a prolonged dry spell. Up until now, we had hardly seen any butterflies flying but today it was different. The meadow browns, ringlets and skippers are out in force and these two heath fritillaries were up in our triangle. Whether the rain triggered the activity, we'll never know - but we are missing out on seeing forester moths, purple-edged coppers and grizzled skippers for yet another year.

Also 'at it' were these two Agapanthia intermedia beetles. The size difference between the small male (on top, presumably) and the enormous female was quite comical. The difference is so marked, I can't really see how the mechanics could work on this pairing.

I took some more photos around the pond of some common backswimmers and a common blue damselfly.

I found a jewel beetle (Anthaxia nitidula) on one of our wild roses. I bought a book on jewel beetles of this area last year and this is the first one I've seen since then so I will endeavour to confirm my ID using the book.

I also saw a few of these caterpillars in a web on a chervil plant. This one is going to be difficult to ID.

I need to ID this bee too. I'm going to be busy.

No need to ID this mullein moth caterpillar which, with it's siblings, is working its way through the plant we first saw it on last week.

We nearly always have greenfinches on our sunflower seed feeder, but we don't often seem them elsewhere in the garden. Today, this one landed a couple of metres away from where I was sitting with my camera.

A violet carpenter bee was visiting our bellflowers and poppies today.

This flying ant landed beside me today. I haven't ID'd it yet, but this seems to be a good opportunity to try out my new ant identification book.

I tried to take some photos of the tadpoles in our pond. I'm pretty sure this one is an alpine newt - there are quite a lot of these tadpoles despite the number of diving beetle larvae in the pond too. Talking of which, a group of backswimmer nymphs had caught some insect and were in a feeding frenzy showing off their white undersides.

In the evening, I was lucky enough to spot this lace border moth beside the pond. This is one of my favourites and I finally have a photo worthy of the species.

Early this morning, this blackbird was de-sliming a slug beside the pond. It's been so dry recently, we're surprised there are still slugs to be found, but we're more than happy that the blackbirds are dealing with them.

In the evening, I found this drowned pine hawkmoth in the pond. He can't have been in there long as I hadn't seen him earlier, but even though he looks fine, I'm afraid he was a goner. I left him on the side of the pond as I figured he'd make a nice snack for a bird. Sure enough, he was gone in the morning, with just a half a wing left behind.

Up in the farmer's garden, I found four mullein moth caterpillars on a mullein! Despite their name, I never found them on a mullein plant before. Unusually, there were three early instars and one final instar.

A male and female great spotted woodpecker brought their youngster to the garden today.

This unusual form of the cinnamon bug, found in on one of the daisies in the orchard, had me reaching for the ID books.

We've had a really long run of warm, dry weather and today it got really hot.

I found a new fly for the garden - there were two of these pretty crane flies, Nephrotoma crocata, in one of our cloches.

Christine said that she'd seen the grass snake up in our farmer's garden, but it shot into a crack in the wall. Later on, I checked on our cellar vent and found a common toad in there - so I released him into the pond. As I was doing that, I spotted a grass snake in the pond. We don't know if we have a single, really mobile individual or three separate individuals - as we've now seen them at the top, bottom and middle of the garden.

At the same time, a broad-bodied chaser was perching above our pond, occasionally leaving to chase off any other species that came too close. I've included some photos of a couple of the toads who seem to be staying in the pond for now - there's a lot to eat in there - you can see a huge diving beetle larva close to one of the toads.

Lastly, here's a photo of our wild flower strewn orchard.

I mowed our front lawn today and this lucky fella somehow managed to survive and I found him crawling across the cut lawn (after raking too). I'm 90% sure this is a garden tiger caterpillar. He's safe in my puparium now and it'll only be a few weeks before I know for sure.

In our orchard, I spotted this mother shipton moth - this has always been a target species for me and I'm really glad to see that they're still around. This has so far been a really poor butterfly and moth year despite really warm, dry weather.

The cut lawn brought in a couple of fieldfare - these are rare visitors to us - although we see them down the valley all the time - so they're not far away.

Lastly, here's a fly I need to identify.

There was a deer down by the pond this morning. He looks wet so maybe he'd been in for a swim?

This Agapanthia intermedia beetle has been on the same scabious flower for a couple of days now.

There have been a lot of starlings around the valley this week. Here's an individual in one of our willow trees.

The watermilfoil pond plant in our pond is flowering.

We've got a good show of poppies this year. Here's a head about to open.

There were a lot of willow flea beetles on our willow.

With all the fledglings around the house at the moment, we're seeing a side of the red-backed shrikes that we've not seen before. The male in particular has been chasing around after all species trying to pick off some young ones. Today he tried with a blackbird, but luckily it was an adult and it saw him off.

The blue tits in our bird box fledged today. From the 9 eggs that originally hatched, only three fledged and one of those was way behind the other two in terms of development and was unable to fly properly - so he left the nest but couldn't fly.

I'll add a summary video at some stage which will show the whole process.