Tuesday 20 July 2010

Baby Hedgehog

The little hedgehog has sort of learnt how to nudge the top saucer off the food, sat eating in the rain with it on its head, not sure if intentional ! Ended up sat in the plate as usual.


Saturday 17 July 2010

Stocks Reservoir

16/07/10

Hogweed, Pink Valerian, Meadowsweet, Blackberries, Knapweed, Thistles, Nettles  and Meadow Vetchling all flowering which meant there were loads of insects flying on a warm, breezy overcast day with some sunny spells. Some of the hogweed flowers were just covered in soldier beetles and various flies. Meadow Brown butterflies are really hard to photograph as they drop to the ground to avoid predators (photographers) attention.


Sericomyia silentis

Eristalix pertenax

Sunfly, Heliophilus pendulas

Sawfly, Tenthredo arcuata

Grypocoris stysi


Gasteruption jaculator with Soldier Beetles


Soldier Beetles, Rhagonycha fulva


Meadow Brown

Thursday 15 July 2010

Hedgehogs

After worrying about the lack of hedgehogs earlier in the year we now have at least two visiting the garden every night to be fed, one of which is tiny.  To stop cats eating the catfood I put an inverted saucer over the bottom saucer and it seems to work. The big hedgehog just shoves it off with its nose or rocks the saucers.  The little one can't though. The other night the little one turned up around 9.50 pm, trundling around in front of the shed and climbing around on an alchemilla. It wandered around the saucers unsure what to do and I'd forgotten to leave a gap it could get its nose under. It was about to give up so I went out and uncovered the food. It froze, then ran off under the shed,but when I came back in we could see its little nose going  and it came back to the food. The big hedgehog came down the side of the house and up behind the small hedgehog and we thought it might be hostile, but it just ate a little alongside it, walked off, circled back a couple of times then left the little one to the food. We did wonder if it was its Mum. The small one ended up sitting in the middle of the dish troughing its heart out.