Blue Tit - new balls please!

There are 3 pairs of Blue Tits nesting around the garden, this bird took time off from chick feeding for some nest building and repair. With a near gale force wind prevailing for most of the day, hindering foraging for food and driving down temperatures, the extra fibres from the tennis ball may just have given the fledglings some life -giving warmth.

Garden Dawn Chorus

After a week of strong westerly winds, Saturday night began to sink into a calm clear stary night. George's idea completely, he'd already put a 3-man tent up in the afternoon and wanted to camp out for the first night this year. We built a fire to warm us up and and then settled down listening to a few distant Nightingales a barking fox, a hooting Tawny Owl and seeing the first Brimestone Moths of the year sitting by the Moth trap. We slept-out until 5.30am, then after Porridge for Breakfast, we drove straight down to Dungeness to look for Skuas - (we missed a flock of 11 Pomarine Skuas by just 30 minutes).
Back to the garden dawn chorus, the Nightingales singing really picked-up pre-sunrise probably at around 3am. At this time of night they had the woods almost to themselves, with no distant cars or barking dogs to compete with, they sounded much closer and more numerous than anytime I've heard them before. At 4.30 a Cuckoo began calling and never really stopped until 6.oo. Other early birds included a calling Pheasant a Dunnock a plethora of Robins and Blackbirds. A Song Thrush added more mixture to the sound, slowly drowning out the distant Nightingales. As the sunrised, all the commoner Garden birds were calling - Greenfinches, Collared Doves and Blue Tits.

We both felt cold when we woke-up but it was a great experience, we know that while Cuckoo's and Nightingales seem almost absent by day, they are never far away atdawn. Hopefully we will camp again soon - weather permitting!

Large Red Damselfly

Large Red Damsel flies have been on the wing for a couple of weeks now. Numbers are continuing to build-up and adults are already ovipositing on the pond surface plants. I'd say there are probably 4 pairs presently by the pond.

Solomons Seal Sawfly

The first time I discovered this sawfly was last summer when we found hundreds of uniform grey caterpillars munching up the leaves of the Solomon Seal plants in the garden. Whilst the caterpillars devour the leaves, the plants always grow back again. Solomon Seal Sawfly are quite docile, weak fliers and the Swallows and House Martins making forays over the garden surely take there toll. However, they're a harmless, child-friendly enigmatic species and despite their foliage consumption habits, we always welcome them back.

Tawny Mining Bee and Beefly

At Easter, I watched these very attractive Bees going about there business against a grassy hill in Lincolnshire. They seemed abundant, feeding on every Celandine and Dandelion flower. A constant companion flying swiftly across our path I wondered why I had never noticed them before. And now back in Kent I now realise how common they are, feeding on Apple blossom and shrubs in flower. It doesn't seem a great deal effort to find them.



Never very far is the delightful Bee Fly with its sword like probosis it has a humming bird like feeding pattern. Like the Tawny mining they do seem to be very common at the moment.

First Cuckoo of spring

A cuckoo was calling close to the garden this morning. Numbers of Cuckoos are reported to be declining across the UK. It will be interesting to see if this bird is going to stick around or continue on a northwards journey. Another welcome migrant was a Nightingale was singing from a copse along Hornash Lane.

Spring Birds working to the calendar

From the garden birds it would seem that most have their clocks set about right. I'm refering to the facts that some birds are out of sync with their traditional breeding patterns or more specific out of sync with their peaks in their food sources. So our Blue Tits which now seem to be now egg laying on the face of it for mid April seem to be laying at their traditional time. But problems may occur if the Moth caterpillars they depend on as a food source for fledglings have already peaked.