Swift Half update -11th April 2011

• Plenty of blue butterflies around still - they seem to like the pungent odour from our chicken droppings!
• Five swallows now seen from the garden at Swift Half - the first on April 1st and the most recent three this afternoon.
• Blue tits have begun to nest in our long-forgotten next box (but wisely abandoned it due to various factors - my constant presence in the garden, our neighbours working outside very close to the box and the cats watchful eyes!)
• Loads of insect activity - loads of bees in my bee post (as well as the appearance of the first very stunning nomadic bees), big fat honeysuckle sawflies floating about - I've seen the adults and Anna found a larva today, wasps and bumblebees everywhere, the first speckled wood butterflies and plenty of pond skaters on the pond.
• Buzzards appearing virtually every day now - alongside the hawks and kites.
• Malu caught a big bank vole last night (I wrestled the poor beastie off him at dawn this morning) - BAD MALU!!!
• Nursery web spiders seen for the first time this year - along with the zebra (jumping) spiders.
• A new frog has appeared in the pond  - very small, but very sweet - completely surrounded by the dozens of palmate newts of course and in the photo above, next to a dead woodlouse spider.
• The woodlouse spider is an impressive wee beastie. They run around after woodlice - pretty well the only thing they'll eat - and their chelicerae (fangs) are something to behold. I guess they have to be, in order for them to pierce the woodlouse' horny exoskeleton.
• The first eleven spot and twenty-two spot ladybirds have appeared in the garden this week also.
• Please click any photo twice to enlarge.