Day 29 - 30 Days Wild - Fledglings in the garden

* Today's random act of wildness - Fledglings in the garden *

It's the last but one day today - it has gone so quick! This evening was spend in my shed looking at the birds in the garden. I noticed we are getting a second brood of starling fledglings and a few younf sparrows show up too.

I haven't just fed these birds for the last 30 days I have been feeding them for years and will continue to do so for many years to come.

Cute Starling fledgling

Starling fledgling having a drink in the bird bath

Starling fledgling with adult

This is what I feed them - suet pellets and mealworm

Suet cake (I also feed them fatballs, peanuts etc...)

Sparrows, the one on the right is a fledgling

Male sparrow

Cinnabar Moth caterpillar

Cinnabar Moth caterpillar

Day 22 - 30 Days Wild - Attracting moths - Take 2

* Today's random act of wildness - Attracting moths *

On day 9 I tried to attract moths by making a wine and sugar syrup - unfortunately I didn't get much success. So tonight am going to try the old fashion sheet and torch experiment. I have set the sheet up and waiting until it gets a bit darker before setting a light on it.

The white sheet set up ready.

Here are some of the insects I found in the garden earlier today, including lots of tiny Cinnabar moths and a bug that his an alien face on his body!

This bug has an alien face! (need to ID)

Cinnabar caterpillars

They are very tiny at the moment

Lots of shield bugs in the garden

A slug and bug (need IDing)

A cocoon in the insect hotel

Grasshopper in the insect hotel

Stay tuned to see what I see in a few hours!!!

Day 4 - 30 Days Wild - Garden BioBlitz

*Today's random act of wildness - Garden BioBlitz*

It's already day 4 of #30DaysWild and it is also the 1st day of Wales's Biodiversity Week, so I decided to do my own mini BioBlitz in the garden :)

A very hot day in sunny South Wales and this is what I discovered...

First stop a quick check in the insect hotel, Wildling couldn't find much, apart from some spider webs and the odd woodlouse.

Lots of spider webs among the bamboos, but unfortunately not much more activity

Over to some of my pots and found these guys having fun and destroying my lilies in the meantime - they called Scarlet Lily Beetle notorious at destroy prize lilies!

Closeup of the Scarlet Lily Beetle - what a beautiful red colour on such a killing machine!

The Scarlet Beetles wasn't the only ones having fun...check out these Shield Bugs

Common Red Soldier Beetle - Thanks to @ParksSheffield on Twitter for your help :)  

Vine Weevel - Thanks to @ParksSheffield & @vickybanham on Twitter for your help :)

If you have arachnophobia don't come to my garden! My garden is full of spiders, and a lot of them are carrying egg sacks at the moment...so I am expecting many more eight legged friends in the future. Here are four I found...

Garden Spider having it's dinner

Nursery Web Spider with egg sack

Grass Spider

House spider in it's web

I was a bit disappointed I didn't see many butterflies or moths, but here are there other critters I found...

Bee on love-in-the-mist flower

Mullein Moth Caterpillar

Tiny grasshopper

Pretty snail

Jewel looking fly

I had to include this lovely pic of my irises in bloom

Hope you enjoyed my little garden BioBlitz - hopefully when I have more flowers in bloom the butterflies will arrive x 

Day 20 - 30 Days Wild - An evening at Crymlyn Burrows

For Day 20 we ventured down to Crymlyn Burrows, Swansea Bay for the evening. The weather was a bit dull and it was very windy - but we still managed to see a number of awesome things.

Crymlyn Burrows

Carrion Crow

Crymlyn Burrows at low tide

A pair of dunlin

Seaweed on the old wooden fence when the tide is out

Jelly bags seaweed (aka Spiral wrack)

A trail of dead crabs

Dead crab closeup

Sea Holly plant

Lots of different terrains

An array of meadow flowers

Skipper moth

Funnel Web Spider

Stonechat

A wonderful place and just on our doorstep. If you are interested in reading more on Crymlyn Burrows then check out my other blog from my visit back in March.

http://sands-walks.blogspot.co.uk/2015/03/crymlyn-burrows.html