Wildlife photos please

[brownfingers]

I like the Speckled Wood butterfly, you almost always find it flying in dappled shade. Your one seems to be out in the open, must have been hungry!

Everyone should grow a cotoneaster, a great bee food plant.

I'sn't there a beer called speckled wood? I'm sure I've sampled it in the past. I remember the butterfly on the pump.

I've got a full mature hedge of cottoneaster. It attracts all manner of things. Last year it was a nuiscance with the amount of wasps it attracted.

[brownfingers]

Hungry swallow chick followed by a fed swallow chick.

[PyreneesPlot]

I've spent more time than I should sat beside the pond trying to get a photo of one of the marbled newts, and have deleted rather a lot of photos of bubbles and empty water and not a lot else.
And then this one turned up (and was lucky not to be hurt) on the hand shovel after scooping out a load of compost from a bag.



Got to love those stripy gloves

[Verinda]

He is gorgeous PP

[PyreneesPlot]

And one of a noisy gang of young green woodpeckers.

[WPG]

Just a bee

[PyreneesPlot]

Just a bee? Just a bee? Also known as a vital bit of conservation!
Lovely bloom too :-)

[Verinda]

I was peering into my pond today. Here's a water boatman, strange little creatures aren't they. Also a water beetle and a red water mite.

[brownfingers]

Probably a bird that you wouldn't really notice, but a whitethroat is something different in the garden.

[brownfingers]

I've been saving these of my favourite bird. These photos were taken last year. This guy was my little mate. He would follow me around the garden all day long. He would even come and sit in the greenhouse with me while I was potting up. A right little comic. At the end of the year, you could see he was getting past his best, and then one day, he just wasn't there any longer.

[Verinda]

I spotted this beautiful butterfly today and, is the next one a damsel fly? I really must look them up in my insect book. And I think the other two are different coloured damsel flies... Pretty aren't they

[Martin H]

Nice pics!

First one is a Ringlet - probably a girl one*. The last two are the common blue damselfly. Not sure about the second pic but might be a small red damselfly.

*The girl ringlets sit like that on a piece of grass while the boys fly up and down the field looking for them. The boys only seem to stop flying to feed or to mate, although I suppose they most stop during the night (presumably to go down the pub and drink beer).

[Verinda]

Ringlet is a great name for a butterfly

Something huge and black zoomed past me today and crash landed on the drive!! Honestly this beetle is about an inch long. I have looked up beetles but haven't found out what it is yet.

[Bigmallly]

Keep them on your side of the pond Verinda.................

[WPG]

It reminds me of those flying cockroaches that they get on the continent, Verinda. I'm not sure if they can fly as far as Ireland though (I hope not!!)