Rainfall: 36.6mm

Temp High: 29.6^oC on 20th

Temp Low: -1.2^oC on 30th

Temp Average: 12.6^oC

I got really excited by these two black beetles with yellow stripes in our cottage garden. Unfortunately, it turns out that these are Turnip flea beetles, Phyllotreta nemorum - a pest of brassicas, not what we want to have here.

It was really cold today, so there wasn't a lot going on it the garden, but I still found a couple of other beetles, both of which are new species for the garden. The weevil, appears to be Magdalis Armigera, but the foodplant of that species is elm, which isn't particularly common around here so this ID may change.

I've got a some beetle and ant photos from today. I also took a couple of photos of our new rockery plants.

We had a new beetle species basking in our rockery today. This is a red-headed cardinal beetle, Pyrochroa serraticornis.

A male red-backed shrike has been around the house for the past couple of weeks, but today was the first time he came close to the house and stayed long enough for me to run upstairs to take some photos.

I found this big fat caterpillar speeding across our muddy front lawn looking for a pupation site. I've put it in my puparium. It's not very easy to differentiate the caterpillars of this family down to species, so I'll wait for it to emerge. **UPDATE** This is a feathered gothic moth caterpillar.

We're still waiting for our new pond to fill with rain water, but it has been really dry for weeks. Even so, we found the first resident today, this frog was hiding in the stones around the edge.

I found this moth on our front door. It is a melanic clouded-bordered brindle.

Just across the way, there are lots of proto-crickets/grasshoppers who really like congregating on one of our deadly nightshade plants in our poison garden.

I went on a tour around the garden and found this longhorn beetle, Agapanthia villosoviridescens on one of our mullein plants.

Our snowball tree is under savage attack from viburnum beetle larvae at the moment. And this green crab spider was using the flowers as a trap.

I got a few minutes to watch the birds to see if there was anything happening with this year's migration. There wasn't anything too surprising, but here's a mistle thrush, a female common redstart and the first spotted flycatcher of the year.

I had a moth emerge today. This is from the enormous caterpillar I found back on September 21st 2021. It is a peppered moth.