Garden and New Hythe 10th July

I've noticed recently that something has been eating the leaves of one of the Acers in our garden. This morning while standing on the patio clutching a mug of coffee I saw the culprit. It was a Leaf-cutter Bee (Megachile centuncularis) pictured below. I watched it land on a leaf and cut a semi circle off, deftly curling it up as it did so and then fly off with it.

LEAF-CUTTER BEE

These are fascinating little bees. They use the pieces of leaf to form a small cell where an egg will be deposited along with some pollen and nectar into a tunnel which will have been excavated into rotten wood usually. About a dozen or so cells are deposited in the same tunnel and then the tunnel is sealed with leaves and then abandoned. The eggs hatch as larvae and feed off the pollen and nectar, then they hibernate and pupate into bees the following year.

I managed to find where our bees were building their tunnels, they were excavating into a rotten branch in our old Cherry tree (see below). The Acer's not looking too good, but i'll happily put up with it.

LEAF-CUTTER'S TUNNELS

Other winged delights in the garden this morning were a Chiffchaff which silently flitted around the trees and bushes, and three Goldfinches which tinkled merrily away as they had a breakfast of Sunflower hearts. A juvenile Great Spotted Woodpecker chose peanuts off the menu and surprisingly a Stock Dove down the bottom of the garden was a new tick. I checked the bird books because i'm aware of impostors in the Pigeon game but it seemed to be the genuine article.

Brown Hawkers and what i'm certain were Emperor Dragonflies criss crossed the garden, sometimes settling momentarily, but just the usual blue species represented the Damselflies although Carol has recently seen a Banded Demoiselle in the garden.

CINNABAR MOTH CATERPILLAR

I got itchy feet this afternoon and headed off for an hour down New Hythe lakes. I parked at the waterworks entrance and immediately noticed the Cinnabar caterpillars pictured above on their favourite plant, Common Ragwort.

A bit further on a footbridge crosses the Millstream and this is home to a few Banded Demoiselles, a female of which is pictured below. Bizarrely, I noticed that the males looked their usual blue colour on one side of the bridge but when they flew to the other side they appeared green! Honestly it's true and no, I hadn't been on the Pimms.

FEMALE BANDED DEMOISELLE

I didn't venture further than the Bittern corner of Streamside lake for reasons that I won't bore you with. Suffice to say the exuberance of youth, the barking of dogs and the consequences of lager feature heavily. But never mind, I amused myself taking some more pictures of Red eyed Damselflies (below) which I confess are becoming a favourite of mine.

RED EYED DAMSELFLY

And finally............

I couldn't help firing off a couple of rounds at this juvenile Great Tit. It seemed to want me to, it did everything except smile.

GREAT TIT

Weekend News

I had about an hour to spare Saturday morning so I parked at the water works entrance to the Country Park and made my way towards the Divers' footbridge. I wanted to check out the adjacent small wood for Treecreepers but there was a fisherman in situ for the next couple of weeks judging by the amount of gear/camping equipment in evidence. Instead I walked up the path through the West scrub where I heard my first Willow Warbler of the year singing away in the direction of one of the Willows nearby. I don't tick 'em until I see 'em as a rule so I started to walk towards the trees when the alarm calls rang out and a feathered missile in the shape of a Sparrowhawk flashed through at treetop height. Of course everything disappeared and stopped singing, and who can blame them, especially the Willow Warbler, all the way from West Africa not even over the jet lag and ending up as a Sprawk snack doesn't seem at all fair to me.



As I emerged from the West Scrub I noticed a tent had sprung up in the bushes to my left, closer observation revealed a scattering of empty beer cans already adorning the area around it, how nice is that! Muttering under my breath I decided to walk around the edge of the West Scrub and back up the same path and have another go at seeing the Willow Warbler, which is where I saw Terry Laws who was also trying to locate his first of the year. Together we managed to hear one and then locate it close by. In 2008 my first sighting was 7th April and in 2009 it was 6th April, so either i'm getting better at finding them or this one arrived earlier..........the latter methinks!



After getting back home I went out to re-charge the feeders and while doing so my attention was drawn to a noisy fracas taking place overhead. I looked up to see a Buzzard being told by two Herring Gulls in no uncertain terms, that it wasn't wanted in the neighbourhood. Below are a few other visitors to the garden this weekend.

STARLING

GOLDFINCH

BLACKCAP

BLUE TIT

COLLARED DOVE

DUNNOCK

GREAT TIT

I got a call late saturday afternoon to say an Alpine Swift had been seen in the area of Castle Lake and Motorway lake. This area is viewable from my garden so as soon as I could I got out in the hope of a really special garden tick. Then the heavens opened spectacularly, I sheltered in the bottom garden shed after braving it for a while and getting soaked in the process but the view was restricted from in there but anyway the bird seemed to have moved on and my hoped for tick turned into a cross. I checked again first thing Sunday to see if it had returned but to no avail unfortunately, although I did see my first two Sand Martins over the garden, small compensation but never mind, there's always tomorrow.