Rainfall: 135.3mm

Temp High: 26.4^oC on 2nd

Temp Low: -2.9^oC on 16th

Temp Average: 9.9^oC 

I've been trying to get a photo of the siskins feeding on our evening primrose seeds, but they usually fly off before I get a chance or they sit around the other side of the plant, like this one. Annoying!

I saw this enormous parasol mushroom from the house today. I forgot to go and take a close-up - this photo was taken from about 100m away.

I managed to find a few minutes to watch the birds today. There's obviously nothing much about, but there have been a few siskins about, attracted it seems by the plentiful evening primrose seed heads which we've left. Despite my concerns that we'll be overun with plants next year, it seems that the siskins will be keeping things under control.

We had a passing buzzard too. We probably won't see many more until frog season in the spring.

I found this small micro moth inside the house today. It is obviously hoping to hibernate inside, but it's far too warm in our house, so I put it outside so that it can find a more suitable place. I'm not sure if I'll be able to ID it to a species.

I haven't had any time to watch the birds for ages now. I've probably missed all the interesting ones for this year, but nevertheless, I spent a few minutes looking out of the window and spotted this goldcrest in our bird cherry. Unfortunately, he saw me at the same time I saw him so I only got one photo before he flew off.

I don't have any photos, but today I strimmed along our dry stone wall so that it is clear for another year. I saw two more wasp spider egg sacs - presuming male wasp spiders only mate with one female, that means that there were at least 10 wasp spiders in the garden this year.

We found a poplar hawk-moth caterpillar under one of our willows. He must have fallen out of the tree. I collected him and he fed on a bit more willow but he was ready to pupate.

I took some more photos of the red swordgrass moth that I found in my puparium on the 18th September.

I also collected a couple of wasp spider egg sacs so I can see them hatch. I suspect that the smaller one is not viable (or maybe it wasn't a wasp spider).

It was a really nice day today. I took the camera out into the garden in case there was anything interesting. This red aphid was enjoying our basil. Also, there were male and female Galeruca tanaceti beetles crawling about in the undergrowth.