Wildlife Blog by Ron Allen – 6th March 2021

Early March has been good for wildlife    Saturday 6 March 2021

The first week of March may have been cold and gloomy but the odd hint of sun and a warmer night has been good for wildlife in the garden. 

We have had two visits from a young boar badger, so good to see badgers in the garden (image 1). We think he is young because of his fluffy fur and a male because of his broad head.  We have had sporadic frogs in the pond (image 2), but today Mary spotted our first frog spawn and so a female must have been around as well (image 3). Moths have been few in the trap but this Hebrew character moth is quite a colourful specimen (image 4). 

Caddis flies are rather like primitive moths but with hairy rather than scaly wings and we get their larvae on our pond. This large caddis, about an inch long, came to the moth trap (image 5). A delight of early spring are the queen bumble bees searching out holes and cavities in which to make their nests. I had to chase this buff-tailed bumble bee around the garden before it settled to search a hole at the edge of a recently dug bed (image 6). 

Finally, we have not seen collared doves in the garden for perhaps a year or more, and then suddenly this pair appeared. They were off down the end of the garden before I could reach my camera and could only get a quick shot through the window, but here they are (image 7).