Home Visitors

The wonderful thing about wildlife is that more often or not you don't have to venture far from the house to see it. In fact in the past couple of days the wildlife has been in the house with a couple of moth species -Common Pug and a pair of mating Brown House Moths. Today as I was waking up, there was the familiar sound behind the curtain of a Daddy-long-legs (Crane Fly), trying to get back out through the window. Or so I thought. In fact as the curtains were pulled back it turned out to be a Common Blue Damselfly. What a pleasant surprise. After a couple of photos the net curtain was pulled to one side and away he went.

Common Pug

A pair of Brown House Moths

Brown House Moth

A male Common Blue Damselfly

A male Common Blue Damselfly

Away from the house and in the back garden the Buddleia is starting to bloom and it's a battle of the Hoverflies and Butterflies against the House Sparrows in a contest to see who will gain from the nectar its producing. At the moment the local House Sparrows are winning and are literally cutting off the flower stalks and taking them back to their nests. If they can't be bothered doing that, they are pecking away at the flower heads, leaving nothing but the stalks.

When sparrows have had enough then there's been Small Tortoiseshell, Green-veined Whites and Drone Flies present.

Drone Fly 

Just after lunch today the chirping of the sparrows stopped and for a moment there wasn't as single bird calling. Normally this is a sign that a raptor is about, and as I stepped outside the back door sure enough above me was a Sparrowhawk. He made a couple of wide circles before diving bombing into a garden at the other end of the estate.

Sparrowhawk - note the downward curved beak

A quick glide above the estate

Before turning and going into a dive

This evening the 3 "resident" Swifts and a pair that passed through. Also 2 Herring Gulls and 5 Lesser Black-backed Gulls.