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| A beautiful sunny day but with a chilly wind. |
I headed down to Ballachurry
Reserve yesterday straight after lunch. How nice to be greeted by smiling, sunny celandines! Here's the list of what I saw.
Birds:
SC210694 Song Thrush
flew away from hedge as I entered reserve.
SC209694 Song Thrush (
probably the same one) sitting in hedge behind Ginny's Bench later.
SC208695 Song Thrush
flew up from ground level and into hedge, old beehive corner.
SC209695 Great Tit in
hawthorn.
SC208694 2 x Great
Tits near boundary firs
SC209694 2 x Great
Tits on Gorse Boundary
SC208694 2 x
Mallard ( pair) reed bed pond
Shieldbugs:
SC209695 2 x Gorse
Shieldbugs near orchard bench
SC209694 39 Gorse
Shieldbugs spread along gorse boundary, some singletons, some in groups. One
gorse bush had 20 in close proximity. 2 were on a tree guard.
SC210694 1 Gorse
Shieldbug on Stinking Iris ( at first sight I thought this must be a Green
Shieldbug but closer examination showed it to be Gorse Shieldbug)
Other:
SC209695 Honey
Bees - several in gorse flowers behind new bench.
SC208695 Wild
Honey Bees appeared active round tree hole in orchard
SC209694
Copious amounts of frogspawn but no frogs seen this year ( NB. Frogs and frogspawn are protected in the IOM - you need a licence to handle or collect)
SC210694 2 x
large Longtails under boundary wall with Old School House.
SC209694 Algae
is growing in the puddles on the aggregate path
SC208694 The
Hogweed flower photographed in bud last week is now fully open.
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| Celandines near the entrance. |
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| Honey Bee in the gorse. |
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Song Thrush - I heard him before I saw him |
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| Song Thrush |
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| Gorse Shieldbug enjoying the sunshine |
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| I counted 20 Gorse Shieldbugs in this gorse bush. |
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| Gorse Shieldbugs are not always on gorse. |
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| Thick, gloopy algae in the puddles. |
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| Frogspawn appeared a few days earlier than last year. |
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| Close-up of the frogspawn |
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| Hogweed in full flower |
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| The reed bed pond with a backdrop of Bradda's hills. |
