B hopeless

Still not caught up with Jan's Kingfisher, but a solid three hours on the allotment on 20 April yielded some rows of potatoes and a flyover Red Kite (it's the fashion). This was the first decent day of the month with 23 additions including the remaining 3 hibernating butterflies. Two days later and a Lesser Redpoll finally made it to the niger feeder in the garden.

I don't always see Puss Moth at the trap so was delighted to find one sat on the fence at the bottom of the garden on 23rd.

Bees are something I've never tried to identify before. What a lot of them there are. So I really don't know what this one is - possibly same as Andy's recent Andrena flavipes?

And might this chap be the Tawny Mining-bee - A. fulva? Looks fairly distinctive but a bit darker than most pics apart from the tip of its abdomen. So not counted either of them, clearly. Help...

I'm loving the bugs though, which I seem to be having more success with (a mighty five species so far - well it's five more than I would usually have seen). This seems to be Nettle Ground-bug Heterogaster urticae.













So far my 285 species comprises: 2 amphibians (including a female Great Crested in the garden - no of course I didn't pick it up); 3 beetles (could do better); 55 birds; 5 (count 'em) bugs; 4 butterflies; 2 woodlice; a fish; a bee-fly, 5 hoverflies and no other flies; 2 fungi; 4 bees; 8 lichens (need to get Rupert over here later in the year); 1 liverwort; 1 mammal; 2 millipedes; 8 molluscs, none of them slugs; 10 mosses; 21 moths; an Orthopteran (a tiny Dark Bush-cricket nymph today); 6 spiders (they are tough!); a springtail; 140 Vascular plants and 2 worms.

Loving the bugs and hoverflies, which I've been meaning to get into for years, sort of enjoying the mosses but they are quite hard, and definitely enjoying exploring the square finding new tiny fragments of vaguely interesting habitat.