In My Garden

Tags

Astrantia, Bittersweet, black bryony, Black Spleenwort, blue-tailed damselfly, butterflies, comma, common blue damselfly, Damselfly, Dragonfly, Essex skipper, Field Bindweed, flowers, fruit tree, garden, gatekeeper, Gladiolus, greengage, hedge bindweed, Hyssop, insects, Jacob's Ladder, Lilium longiflorum, peacock butterfly, perennial sow-thistle, Pheasant Berry, plants, rowan, ruddy darter, runner beans, spleenwort, Stargazer Lily, Suffolk, sunset, Swiss Chard, trees, vegetables, wheat, wild flowers, Woody Nightshade

This post is made up of photos of flowers, insects and other things of interest that I saw in my garden during the last couple of weeks of July and the first fortnight in August.  We spent that time catching up with jobs around the house and doing a lot of gardening as the weather was quite good.

It has not been a good year for insects here; an extremely bad one for butterflies in fact, possibly due to the cool, wet spring and early summer we had.  The flowers and plants had a slow start but once the warm weather arrived in mid July they soon caught up.

A male Ruddy Darter (Sympetrum sanguineum)

We still had plenty of these small dragonflies in our garden until recently but in July they had just started flying.  They don’t just fly near water but find perches all over the garden from which they ‘dart’ to catch passing prey.  In this photo the dragonfly is on the top of a cane in my flower-border and was happy to let me get very close to him.  Ruddy Darters are the only red dragonflies with totally black legs – they also have a small patch of yellow at the base of the wings.  There are black lines on the upper side of the second- and third-to last segments of the abdomen.  The upper half of the eyes are red-brown and the lower half are green.  The frons (the front of the ‘face’) is red.

Hyssop (Hyssopus officinalis)

I bought this herb late last summer; it survived the winter very well and has flowered beautifully this year.  It is very popular with the bees and smells good too.

Swiss Chard ‘Bright Lights’ (Beta vulgaris subsp. cicla var. flavescens)

I grew Swiss Chard from seed this year for the first time, mainly because my mother likes it and hasn’t been able to get it for a few of years.  I gave her a few plants and then put some plants into a couple of gaps in my flower-border.  They look beautiful, especially with the sun shining through the colourful stems.  I can’t say the vegetable when eaten has been very popular.  The leaves are like spinach, quickly reducing in size and becoming soft; the stems which I put into the hot water a minute or so before the leaves, have a lovely texture and a very mild taste.  They can be steamed successfully too.  I think it is the mildness that doesn’t appeal – or perhaps the spinach-like leaves.  We love greens in this family and get through large amounts of cabbage, spring-greens, brussels sprouts and broccoli, all of which have fairly powerful flavours.  Perhaps Swiss Chard is too refined for us?

A poor photo of an Essex Skipper butterfly (Thymelicus lineola) sitting on a buttercup flower.

I include this just to prove to myself that we did get a number of skippers in the garden in the summer.  The Essex Skipper is very similar to the Small Skipper but the antennal tip instead of being golden is black underneath, which can just be seen in my photo.

A Greengage (Prunus domestica ssp. italica var. Claudiana)

We bought a young Greengage tree nearly three years ago and this year we got two fruits on it.  We didn’t manage to eat either of them because one or other of our animal, bird or insect visitors got there first.

A Comma butterfly (Polygonia c-album)

The name ‘Comma’ refers to a white comma mark on the underside of the wings.

Woody Nightshade/Bittersweet berries (Solanum dulcamara)

This has got everywhere in the garden this year!  I have found it growing in amongst the herbs, up through the Pyracantha and it has taken over the two Cotoneasters that grow next to our gas-tank.  (We are not on mains gas here so have a large butane gas tank near the house).  Bittersweet berries are beautiful and are at their most attractive at this stage when some are still green and they are plump and shiny.

Another poor photograph showing what I believe to be a female Blue-tailed Damselfly (Ischnura elegans)

Another photo that is proof to me that we had these damselflies flying round the pond this summer.

Female Gatekeeper butterfly (Pyronia tithonus)

Male Gatekeepers are territorial and patrol an area of hedgerow often in corners of fields or near gates trying to deter other insects from entering their domains.  The males are smaller and a brighter orange than the females and have a dark patch of scent glands on the fore-wing.

Ripe Wheat (Triticum spp.)

I couldn’t resist taking a photo of the wheat in the field behind our house just before it was harvested this year.

Peacock butterfly (Inachis io)

This slightly battered Peacock was sunning itself on the path.  They are very hairy-bodied insects and the colours and markings on the wings are beautiful.  I noticed for the first time the lovely tiger-stripe yellow and black ‘shoulders’ on the fore-wing.

Perennial Sow-thistle (Sonchus arvensis) This one I discovered growing next to our compost bin.

Field Bindweed (Convolvulus arvensis)

The flowers this year are only lightly marked with pink.  They are usually much brighter.

We are lucky (?) to have both Field Bindweed, as in the former photo, and Hedge Bindweed (Calystegia sepium) as here, in our garden. This one was being visited by a bumble bee.

Our young Rowan or Mountain Ash tree (Sorbus aucuparia) had many flowers in the early summer and produced some berries this year. The berries in the photo are not quite ripe yet.  They were eaten by something very quickly once they were red and ripe.

Pheasant Berry (Leycesteria formosa)

I have a pale-leaved Pheasant Berry bush and it has done very well this year, having had enough rain-water at the beginning of the season.  The birds usually enjoy the berries but I’m not sure if the wasps will have left them any!

Lilium longiflorum

The white Longiflorum lilies did a little better this year.  I still had some trouble with non-native Red Lily Beetles but the cool wet June meant the flowers were taller and stronger and the beetles didn’t appear until later in the season when the weather improved.  I was as vigilant as I could be, going out checking for beetles at least twice a day and squashing them when I found them.  Unfortunately, nothing could be done while I was away from home so when I returned I soon discovered the horrible grubs eating the plants.  I removed as many as I could and discovered that spraying them regularly with soap was very effective.

Runner Beans (Phaseolus coccineus) ‘Celebration’

I grew runner beans this year and gave my mother six plants and planted the rest in a gap in my flower border.  They grew up through a laburnum tree and did quite well.  I started them fairly late so they didn’t begin flowering til after mid-summer but the beans develop very quickly and these ones are so sweet and hardly have any ‘strings’.   I love the orange flowers.

The beans with a Jacob’s Ladder (Polemonium caeruleum) flower-spike and a bumble bee flying towards the Jacob’s Ladder.

The Astrantia, also known as Masterwort, has done well this year.

A male Common Blue Damselfly (Enallagma cyathigerum)

This photo of my lilies (Lilium ‘Stargazer’) was taken well after sunset and without a flash.

I wanted to see if there was enough ambient light to take a successful photo of these luminous lilies.

I then took this photo of a Gladiolus next to the greenhouse

On a church cleaning visit to our church at Rumburgh I noticed this Black Spleenwort (Asplenium adiantum-nigra) growing on the wall.

This plant is mainly found in the west of the country so I was surprised to see it here, almost as far east as one can get.  It loves alkaline soil and here it is growing in the mortar.  A month later and it had gone – removed I presume, in case it caused yet more damage to our poor crumbling church building.

Just below the spleenwort was this patch of Black Bryony (Tamus communis)

A sunset seen from the back of the house.

My music selection today is ‘The Arrival of the Queen of Sheba’ by Handel.

Thanks for visiting!

Yet More Garden Visitors.

Tags

birds, buzzard, common darter dragonfly, Damselfly, dove, emerald damselfly, flea beetle, garden, garden spider, grey dagger caterpillar, insects, leaf beetle, long-tailed tit, moorhen, snail, spider's webs

This is the last collection of photographs I took last year of the creatures I saw in my garden.  This post starts with photos I took in mid September and continues until the beginning of November.

A Flea Beetle. Not a particularly desirable insect to have in the garden but I was fascinated by its shiny wing cases and the enormous rear legs used for jumping.

A Leaf Beetle – I think this may be Chrysolina varians which lives on St John’s-wort. It was such a pretty iridescent beetle that I found on the clothes hanging on my washing line. With apologies for the horrible hand!

Buzzard (Buteo buteo)

I am pleased that Buzzards are returning to East Anglia.   Until eight or nine years ago I had never seen one here.

Some beautiful dew-covered Garden Spiders’ webs (Araneus diadematus) I saw at the beginning of October

Apologies for the out of focus image. I believe this is an Emerald Damselfly (Lestes sponsa) or it might even be a Scarce Emerald Damselfly (Lestes dryas)

I spent ages following this damselfly round and round the pond until at last it settled and then of course, the camera wouldn’t focus on it!

I saw it again the following day perched on willowherb seeds.

This is a better photograph but still not as clear as I would like.

I had never seen one of these damselflies before.  What makes me think it is an Emerald Damselfly is (a) its green body, (b) the way it rested with its wings spread out and (c) the brown wing-spot.  What makes me think it may be a Scarce Emerald Damselfly is the size of the wing-spots which are quite wide.  (The Emerald Damselfly’s wing-spots are narrow).

Grey Dagger moth caterpillar (Acronicta psi)

The prominent soft spike is just behind the caterpillar’s head which makes it look back-to-front. Probably a ruse to fool birds. The moth has dagger shaped markings on its wings. I found the caterpillar in the bottom of the wheelbarrow after I had taken the pyracantha prunings down to the heap at the bottom of the garden.

Common Darter Dragonfly (Sympetrum striolatum)

Long-tailed Tit (Aegithalos caudatus) in Spindle tree

And again

Moorhen (Gallinula chloropus)

White doves sitting on the shed roof

Garden Spider (Araneus diadematus)

Spider silhouette

I held the begonia leaf so that I could photograph the markings on the spider’s back

A tiny yellow snail on a dead leaf. I think this is a White-lipped Banded Snail (Cepaea hortensis)

I hope you have enjoyed looking at some of the things I saw in my garden last year.  Best wishes to you all!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

More Visitors to my Garden

Tags

bumble bee, Damselfly, Dragonfly, frog, pond skater, Rabbit, squirrel, Suffolk, summer

This is a post title I have used before and a very useful one it is too!

I have been going through the photographs I took last year in my garden and have found a few that I didn’t post for one reason or another.  Some of them are ok and some of them are definitely not but I will include a few of the latter as a record to myself of what I saw.  I won’t bore you with all the shots at once but will split them up into digestible portions.

A young Rabbit (Oryctolagus cuniculus) photographed one evening in June

I veer about in my attitude towards rabbits.  When I see rabbit kittens and young rabbits like this one I am full of love towards them.  How sweet they are!  I once looked out of an upstairs window early one morning and saw a couple of adult rabbits with a tiny rabbit kitten.  The adults were watching the baby and eating grass now and then while the kitten was exploring and skittering about, having fun.  It then ran up to the adults and rolled on its back just in front of them.  One of the adults nuzzled its head against the baby.  It all looked so peaceful.

I don’t feel quite the same about rabbits when I find large holes dug in the flower bed or bark chewed off my favourite trees and shrubs.  I am grateful for the control exerted on our rabbit population by stoats.

While hanging washing out on the line one summer a young rabbit ran past me.  I could tell from the way it ran that it was distressed and wasn’t sure where to go.  It headed for one of our vegetable plots.  I then saw the cause of the rabbit’s fear;  a stoat appeared round the corner of the house and well, skipped past me and made straight for the vegetable patch.  I couldn’t bear to watch any more so I went back indoors.  We haven’t seen any stoats in the garden for a couple of years – but we haven’t had too many rabbits either!

A sun-bathing, dozing rabbit seen one morning in late June

This is (I think) a Red-tailed Bumble Bee (Bombus lapidarius) on a Welsh Onion flower.

A Common Frog (Rana temporaria)

This frog would not turn round so I could only photograph its back.  Common Frogs can be found in shades of yellow, orange, red, green, brown and even blue and usually have dark spots and markings on them.  They also have a dark patch behind the eye.

A Grey Squirrel (Sciurus carolinensis)  This one is very thin!

Grey Squirrels were introduced into this country in the mid-19th century but didn’t become established here until the beginning of the 20th century after many releases.

 

 

 

Ruddy Darter dragonfly; male ( Sympetrum sanguineum )

Banded Demoiselle damselfly; male

 

 

This is a little out of focus but you can still see the dark iridescent band on this male’s wing

These beautiful damselflies are quite large and flutter their wings more as a butterfly does

 

Pond Skater ( Gerris lacustris )

They use their short front legs to capture prey that has fallen onto the surface of the water.

That’s it for now.

 

 

 

A Miscellany Part 1

Tags

Bee, Damselfly, Dragonfly, Flesh Fly, Franciscans, House Martin, house sparrow, Robin, Santiago de Compostella, smoke, Swallow, Thurifer, white doves

I usually take a number of photos of the things I see each day but don’t manage to include them in a post.  This post is a mixture of those photos, a few memories of my father and a mention of a couple of things I have done during the last two weeks.

The weather during the last few days has been pants (to use one of R’s expressions).  When it hasn’t been raining it has been very dull and chilly, and with a strong easterly wind blowing it hasn’t been pleasant out-of-doors.  I have a slight cough as well and no energy: this post will have photos I took when the weather was better.  The children are on their half-term holiday this week.  They can’t be having much fun unless their parents have taken them abroad.  As I look out of the window this morning there is a steady drizzle falling and I am not looking forward to going out to feed the birds.

R spent a couple of days in Manchester the weekend before last.  His poor Mum is finding it very difficult getting used to having more carers coming into her home.  She feels as though her life is now out of her own control and is quite depressed.  She knows she needs the help and is pleased to be able to stay in her own home but all the same….  R was able to give her a hug and some sympathy.  His brother is doing all the duties I do with my own mother plus some, and is finding it all extremely trying, so R got a couple of rants from him too.  R feels bad that he can’t help more but I think he does very well considering he has a full time job with lots of travelling away from home.  He phones his Mum regularly and is in constant touch with his brother.  He visits every month or two and provides equipment and other financial aid.  R went on the train so wasn’t able to drive them about when he was in Manchester but they did have an enjoyable walk in the local park in the sunshine.  The sun shone brightly and it was very warm so my mother-in-law was cheered by the flowers, the other people in the park, the ice-cream R bought and the coffee in an outside café sitting in her wheelchair under a tree.

After dropping R off at Diss station on the Sunday to get the train to Manchester, I drove back to Fressingfield to pick up Mum and took her to church in Eye.  I do spend quite a lot of my time in the car it seems!  The retired priest who has been looking after Eye church had just returned from a pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostella and spoke movingly about his experiences.  He started walking from the border between Portugal and Spain with crowds of other people from all nations and walked about twelve miles a day through beautiful countryside.  He said he was fortunate to have his luggage sent on each day to the next hotel and only needed to carry a few necessaries with him.  Many of the other pilgrims had to carry all their belongings with them in large packs and either camped or stayed in hostels along the route.  Poor man!  He retired and moved to this area to be near his family and almost as soon as he arrived he was asked to look after churches in two different benefices and has therefore worked an extra year already with lots of driving to do.  He decided to go on the pilgrimage (organised by the diocese to celebrate its centenary) before he realised he’d be so busy at home.  He also directed our attention to the scaffolding in the church across the whole Rood Screen.  He said it was ‘Holy Scaffolding’ – there to remind us of the scaffolding God provides for us in our journey through life – the props and supports He gives us out of love.  Being in Eye church always reminds me of my father as there is so much that he made there.  He was a cabinet maker and above all loved working in churches.  He left school at the age of fourteen and became an apprentice to a joiner/cabinet maker.  His parents were too poor to allow him the luxury of staying on at school.  He had to do his National Service in the RAF and hated it and shortly after leaving he decided he would become a friar.  He joined the Friary at Hillfield near Cerne Abbas in Dorset and was known as Brother Dunstan.  He was also known as the laughing friar as he was always cheerful.  He worked as a joiner/cabinet maker while there and also ran the local scouts.  He eventually started to have doubts about whether he should stay in the friary as I think his parents put a lot of pressure on him to leave.  They thought it strange for a young man to stay celibate and not to marry and have children.  He left while he was still a novice friar but always hankered after the life he had led there.  He certainly never gave up his vow of poverty – we were always poor and Mum is still struggling to find money to look after her house from her own small pension.  We often visited the Friary when I and my brother and sister were small and loved these jolly, kind men who played games with us and were so happy.  We went to the seaside once taking one of Dad’s friends who rolled up his habit and paddled in the sea much to everyone’s amusement.  We often had friars staying at our house when I was young; one I remember who thundered about in his sandals and got up noisily very early in the morning.  One day we got up to find water and blood all over the bathroom and no sign of the friar.  He had fallen over while getting out of the bath, cut his head badly and taken himself off to the local hospital.  By the time Dad had died only one of his old friends was left and he kindly came and spoke at Dad’s funeral  Mum loves being in Eye church too, as she likes to see all Dad’s things about her (he never had much time or money for improving his home so there are few pieces of his furniture there!).  Both my mother and mother-in-law find great comfort from their religion.  I try my best to get Mum to her own church where she is so happy.  It is unfortunate that there are not enough people in her church willing or able to give her a lift as I miss going to my own church with R.  Mother-in-law is more unfortunate than Mum in that her own church has changed so much and has side-lined all the elderly members in favour of its younger ones and has virtually stopped using the set services.  Even if she could get a regular lift from someone who could manage the wheelchair she wouldn’t come away from church feeling refreshed and comforted.  I think rural churches like mine appreciate their elderly members more than town churches do – I don’t think the churches in the country would exist at all without all the old stalwarts!

Another conversation R and I had before he went off to Manchester recalled my father.  R was saying the containers he has for screws and nails and such like are starting to fall apart and he was wondering what he could replace them with.  He said his father used to use old tobacco tins, St Bruno ones, and I said that was what my father used too but his ones were Balkan Sobranie.  My father began smoking at the age of fourteen when he started work and continued until shortly before his death from lung cancer four years ago.  He preferred smoking a pipe and my memories of him are with a pipe in his mouth working in his workshop or sitting in his garden in the evening.  He was a careless smoker, throwing matches about and leaving smouldering pipes in places he shouldn’t, including the back pocket of his trousers.  You can imagine the damage done to trousers, underpants and flesh that ensued.  I am amazed he didn’t set fire to his workshop too with all the heaps of wood shavings and sawdust about.  He was never happier than when enveloped in a cloud of smoke.  His pipe or cigarettes of course, and then bonfires were a favourite with him too.  His excitement on finding that a fire was still alight next morning!  He loved a good blaze and couldn’t be done with an incinerator.  He got through tons of firewood and coal in the house.  He was given the job of thurifer at Eye church.  The thurifer is the person who swings the thurible or censer full of smoking incense during the service and he was very good at it.  I remember my mother telling me of an incident one Palm Sunday when they were to process through the town from the Town Hall or the school, I can’t remember which, to the church.  They all started to sing the processional hymn, my father began swinging the thurible and next minute the fire alarm started wailing!

I had been thinking how fortunate I was to have four different types of warbler singing in my garden, Blackcap, Chiff-chaff, Garden Warbler and Willow Warbler and another one, the Lesser Whitethroat, singing in hedgerows four minutes walk away when all of a sudden they all stopped a week ago.  I hear the Garden Warbler and the Chiff-chaff every now and again but the others have gone or just stopped singing.  Ah well, it was very good while it lasted.  I heard a Turtle Dove briefly last Wednesday but it didn’t stay around.  I don’t know that it is warm enough for Turtle Doves at the moment.  I can only remember them singing on warm and/or sunny days or is that my memory playing tricks on me?  We have lots of other birds about with their fledglings demanding to be fed.  The woodpeckers are so grubby looking from their constant feeding of young in the hole in their tree.  Instead of white markings they have beige feathers now.  As I type I can see a large group of young greenfinches on the telephone cable fluttering their wings while the parent birds stuff food into each one in turn.

White doves visiting our garden

What a wonderful thing it must be to own some doves!  You provide them with a dovecot and pamper them to your heart’s content.  You don’t need to feed them much as all you do is let them fly off each morning to gorge themselves, with other pigeons and doves, on farmers’ crops and other peoples’ peas and beans and bird-table food!

A male House Sparrow

Swallows on the electric cable.

House Martins on our roof.  They land in large groups and sun themselves and then fly off and return quickly- flitting about.  Their song reminds me of budgerigars.

In a post last week I included a blurred photo of a damselfly.  I managed to take a few more pictures last week before they all disappeared.  The red females went before I could photograph them but a different type of damselfly arrived with green and brown females and these are my photos.

The damselflies have all gone now but I managed to photograph a dragonfly which had just emerged from the pond at the front of the house and was drying its wings.

A Black-tailed Skimmer

Another not so pleasant insect I saw in the garden last week was a Flesh Fly.

A tiny bee on a Welsh Onion flower.

In the second part of this post I will include the flower photos I have taken recently.

 

The Ugly-Bug Ball

Tags

Bees, Cuckoo-spit, Damselfly, fish, Froghopper, gardening, Green Hairstreak, Hornet, Hoverfly, Lily Beetle, Mimulus, moorhen, yellow iris

The first Yellow Iris is in flower.

The weather has been warm and sunny for the last four days so I have tried to make the most of it by being outside.  The tubs of spring bulbs needed tidying and getting ready for their long sleep until next year.  I bought some plants for my window boxes a couple of weeks ago and have now planted them up and fixed them under the kitchen and utility room windows at the front of the house. 

I have put this mimulus in both window boxes

  I also had a few plants that had to be planted out and a few that needed repotting.  I have got other pots of plants that have yet to flower and some more that I’m not sure what to do with, so I’ll feed them all and give them a sort out during the next few days.  I have many more pots of perennials than I would like but until I make a new flower bed or re-instate the one I abandoned after Dad died and all sorts of things went wrong, they’ll have to stay where they are.  I have enjoyed myself very much indeed and wish I could spend all day every day gardening. 

With the warm weather all sorts of  insects good and not so good have arrived.  I have killed five red Lily Beetles so far – such beautiful insects but so destructive.  They and their nasty grubs can destroy a lily plant in a couple of days and not only lilies but fritillaries too.  If they think they are under attack they drop down onto the soil under the plant, red side down and then bury themselves and can’t be found.  I creep up on them and put one hand under the leaf they are on to catch them if they jump and then squash them as quickly as possible.  They do sometimes bite but it’s the last thing they do!

I am hoping that the mild winter we had this year has meant that many more insects have survived.   I can put up with a few more troublesome insects if we have more butterflies and moths, ladybirds and hoverflies, lacewings, crickets and grasshoppers .  The bats flying round the house this evening certainly were catching lots of things to eat.  We have hornets here and they have become noticeable this week with their deep buzzing and their large yellow and brown bodies, flying ponderously about the garden.  They are different in their behaviour to wasps.  They aren’t very intelligent I think, and once in the house have no idea how to get out again.  Wasps are in your face all the time, spoiling for a fight but the hornet is more like a bee, not really interested in us and just wanting to get on with their own business.  I’m not saying they are harmless, far from it;  I wouldn’t mess with a hornet!  We had a hornet’s nest in our old shed a few years ago and as they had positioned it against the door we couldn’t get anything out of the shed until late autumn when they had all perished.  They are attracted to light and will fly towards it at night like moths.  It was so strange to see them crawling up the outside walls of the house trying to get to the outside lights or into bedroom windows.  We have had to learn to keep windows shut when we have the lights on at night.  I would like to get fly-screens fitted to the windows one day.

  Today, I saw the first Damselfly I’d seen this year.  Such a thin body, so fragile looking but so beautiful.  The male, a sliver of turquoise and the female a reddish-brown.  I tried to photograph the male but it came out blurred – I’ll try again tomorrow.

Froghopper larvae are exuding frothy ‘cuckoo-spit’ on all the plants in the garden.

Lots of different bees are flying about.  I noticed bees entering a crack between the mortar and one of our kitchen windows, there are lots of mining bee holes in the dryer flowerbeds and while I was in the conservatory watering R’s cacti today I became aware of a leafcutter bee with its orange underside carrying large pieces of leaf in through the door.  It has made a nest in the soil of one of R’s cacti and was rolling up the bits of leaf and taking them down the hole.

There are many different types of hoverfly about.

 

I noticed a little butterfly had got into the conservatory today so went to get a glass and a card as this is the best way of catching insects I know.  The butterfly was a Green Hairstreak and the first one I had ever seen.  The top of their wings is brown but the underside is a brilliant green.  The butterfly kept its wings shut so I could admire the glorious colour.  I tried to photograph it while it was in the glass but it didn’t work out well at all. 

  

On Friday morning while having a walk aound the garden I came across this on the path…

I couldn’t think how it could have come to be there.  I was also surprised to see such a big fish which had no doubt come from our pond.  Why hadn’t it been eaten?  What had caught it and left it there?  What type of fish is it?  Is it a bream?  It wasn’t until R and I were talking about it when he got home from work that we worked out how it had got there.  It has a stab wound low down on its body and R suggsted that a heron might have inflicted it.  I then remembered that when R had gone down to his vegetable plot near the big pond the night before he had disturbed a heron.

Today while walking round the pond I disturbed a moorhen and her three chicks.  The parent rushed off into the reeds as usual and left the three chicks to find their way back to her as best they could.  As I watched them, one of the chicks started to squeak and looked as though it had caught its foot in something in the water.  I thought this strange so got closer only to see the chick dragged under water and disappear.  What could have done this?  What have we got in the pond that eats baby moorhens?  I thought it might be a pike but R thinks it unlikely that a pike would live in a pond this size.  He thinks it might be a carp.  Has anyone any suggestions?

I took a few photographs of the perch (I think) in our pond today.

I’ll finish here tonight and do another post tomorrow when I’ll talk about the birds and flowers I’ve noticed this weekend.