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 3 - 30 Days Wild - A visit to the lake

*Today's random act of wildness - A visit to the lake*

Day 3 of #30DaysWild and once again I had to work until 5.30pm. So the only chance of getting 'wild' was in the evening.

We decided to go to a local lake called 'Fendrod Lake' in Swansea. It is set in the heart of a busy enterprise zone and is about 13 acres.

Every time we visit there is always birds on the lake, and the surrounding bushes and trees you will find lots of critters and smaller birds.

This is what we found...

Swan among the Canada Geese

Male Mallard Duck

Lots of Canada Geese and a solo white goose (can you spot it?) 

Majestic swans on the lake..

...and this one posing like a dragon

Lots of birds through the reeds

A lovely Large White Caterpillar

A cheerful Robin

Song Thrush among the daisies

A very boisterous Wood Pigeon

Brown Damselfly

Green Orb Spider with prey

14 Spotted Ladybird's mating 

Lots of daisies in the sunshine

Blue Tit

Chaffinch singing a beautiful song

Male House Sparrow

Muscovy hybrids? 

Muscovy Duck

Female Mallard

A lovely view of the lake

Wilding enjoying feeding the birds

A lovely walk, but a little disappointed we never got to see any cygnets and goslings - I am sure this time last years there were many, hopefully they are just a little late this year. 

Day 2 - 30 Days Wild - An evening nature stroll

*Today's random act of wildness - an evening nature stroll*

Today was a very sad day, I found out that my best friend's mum had died suddenly in the night and most of the day I spent walking around in a daze and thinking of the grief my friend was going through.

After work, I decided to go and get some fresh air and clear my head at a local nature reserve called  'Swansea Vale Nature Reserve'. It's a beautiful place and one of the few remaining wetland habitats in the City of Swansea. It has a variety of plants and animals and these are some of our findings...

The first thing we saw is a grey heron lucking in the reed beds...

...it wasn't long before he sets off...

...to find his mate!

There are lots of wild flowers and trees around the reserve, including orchids, lilies and bulrushes. This means lots of insects including damselflies and lacewings.

Water Hemlock

Southern Marsh Orchid

Green Lacewing

Male Azure Damselfly

Apparently there are otters on the reserve, but the only mammal we encountered was this cheeky grey squirrel. We spotted several on our walk and there are houses adjacent to the reserve so no doubt they have these cheeky chappies visiting...what a cool place to live!

Grey Squirrel

There were lots of birds around, but unfortunately they didn't stay still long enough to get any good photos, birds I definitely identified were: Carrion Crow, Heron, Robins, Blackbirds, Blackcap, Dunnock, Wood Pigeons, Blue Tits, Great Tit, Long Tailed Tit (with fledgling) and possibly a Great Spotted Woodpecker.

Carrion Crow

So our little evening walk proved to be a success, we were literally there for only an hour and managed to see all these 'wild' things. I will definitely go back in a few weeks earlier in the day to see what else we can see. 

When we got home I brushed up on my insect identification with the help from my #30DaysWild mascot 'Wildling' - Who I forgot to take on our walk (but don't tell him that!).

Due to unforeseen circumstances Wildling couldn't make the trip to the nature reserve so helped me identify the animals when I got home.

Day 1 - 30 Days Wild - An Evening Garden Birdwatch

It's back! 

#30DaysWild - A whole month of doing cool wild stuff which I am super excited about it. In case you don't know what it is, for the second year running the Wildlife Trust have launched a campaign where they encourage people to do something 'wild' every day throughout the month of June. This is my second year to do it, I loved it so much last year I didn't want it to end and continued to carry on writing about my adventures in my main blog (www.sands-walks.blogspot.co.uk).

What to do for my first day? Well, unfortunately I had to work today and didn't get home until after six so I thought I would keep it 'very' local and for one hour I sat quietly and watched what birds come into the garden at evening...

*Today's random act of wildness - A evening garden birdwatch*

Well first off I would like you to meet 'Wildling the Fox' he will be my little mascot throughout the 30 days...cute isn't he and proudly wearing my #30DaysWild badge :)

Apart from fatballs, peanuts and coconut shells the birds love this concoction of mealworm and suet pellets. At precisely 6.30pm I put it out for them...

...within seconds we get our first visitor - a feral pigeon.

Next up the sparrows, mostly males tonight.

Then the noisy ones...the starlings

It all starts kicking off on the feeder between the starlings and the pigeons "he's behind you!"

A face off over the suet coconut! 

It's not long before the pigeons give up and move along leaving the starlings victorious of the feeder!

It's just past 7pm and already our list looks impressive!

Next visitor was a magpie...

...then more starlings with a few juveniles

Finally we finish our hour with a few jackdaws (the other is just off camera)

Phew! I thought it would be quiet this time of the night, but great to see so much activity in the garden and what a great way to kick off #30DaysWild with launching it with our regular feathered friends :)

The full list is:

• Starlings - 7
• Jackdaws - 2
• Magpie - 1
• Sparrows - 4
• Wood Pigeon - 1
• Feral Pigeon - 4

Exciting day tomorrow! #30DaysWild

Tomorrow is the start of the Wildlife Trust's #30DaysWild - where all through the month of June I will be doing something wild everyday and blogging about it. I've already got my pack from the Wildlife Trust and can't wait to start filling it in :)

Here are a few things I already got planned...

1. Spot a kingfisher
2. A visit to Skomer Island
3. Plant wild flowers and see what they attract
4. Go camping
5. Listen to dawn chorus
6. Go star gazing
7. Making my own suet coconuts for the birds
8. Litter pick to create a better environment for wildlife
9. Make a tasty moth syrup and see what shows up
10. Do a reptile survey for ARC
11. Trip to see the Ospreys at Dyfi
12. Create my own bird table
13. Beach combing

I have plenty more ideas and will blog them as I go...

A few days ago I pinned my #30DaysWild badge on the bird feeder so all my regular visitors can join in the celebrations (Its on my backpack now, after the magpie tried to steal it) :)

Until tomorrow, let's get wild!

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