The Green Goblin Blog

Hygrocybe conica, the witch's hat mushroom:

Labels: Nature

Using this on-line butterfly identifying tool, I quickly found out this is a speckled wood butterfly (Pararge aegeria).

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After a Springwatch program a few years ago, we bought a bee home (which we could have made, admittedly). We hadn't seen much active until this year when I noticed inside one of the bamboo tubes making crunching noises. A week or so later I've had a look to see if there have been any changes and the first thing I noticed was a green plug in one of the tubes:



And - after waiting for the bee to buzz off - here's the back (the red asterix is the tube filled in the front view; the orange asterix is near a tube leaking gloop):



Here's our busy worker returned to add more green plaster to one of the tubes not quite filled enough at the back:



And then 45 minutes later the bee is round the front:

Labels: Nature

During the bagging up of all the garden waste from the last few years, we managing to find (and not step on) five frogs, three toads and a newt. Hopefully that was ALL of them and there aren't any in the black sacks thinking "dark in here".
All have been safely moved under an amphibian relocation scheme to the end of the garden where there is a shaded area set aside for mini wildlife (overgrown with some rotting logs, etc.)

Common Frog - Rana temporaria



Common Toad - Bufo bufo - with two common frogs



Smooth or Common Newt - Triturus vulgaris

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A soldierfly, showing its lovely metallic sheen while sitting on a pear tree leaf



New season's rose

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It seems a really long time since last summer so I'd forgotten what it was like. And the things you have to do, like gardening. So yesterday was a big offensive on everything green. The grass had its second cut of the year - before I started it was even longer than when I cut it for the first time a few weeks ago. Thankfully the grass only covers about 180 square metres (0.044 acres). For comparison, the centre circle of a football pitch is 260 square metres.

The hedges that were starting to block the paths were chopped back and a few holly tree branches felt the bite of the saw. Hidden away in the topiary (a.k.a. the round hedge) was a small Yellow Shell Moth.



According to UKMoths.org.uk, this is a common creature that grows up to an inch in wingspan and flies from June to August.

The flower beds in the back garden (and I use the term "flower beds" quite loosely) are becoming overwhelmed by a crawling blackberry plant. Calling something with long tendrils a bush doesn't seem quite right. And loads of grass so we can't actually see where the lawn ends and the beds begin.

A survey of the plants-in-pots has shown a high mortality rate - I know it has been raining quite a lot but it has also been dry in between and that was when we failed to supply water ourselves. A few rose bushes have turned to twigs and one of the 10-year-old horse chestnuts has given in, although it's twin a few pots along is covered in large leaves. The ash tree is fine, although that has a larger pot than the rest, but the sycamore looks sickly. This is strange as normally a sycamore is like a weed and grows everywhere as quick as you like.



The avocado struggles on, year after year, despite all the neglect I shower upon it. Admittedly it is a lot shorter than in recent years after being cooked inside the plastic greenhouse. I disposed of the greenhouse a few weeks ago as it was just becoming too full of holes - the plastic the manufacturers chose for the sheeting was almost as poor a quality as that used to connect the metal poles together. I now have several months to decide what to do before the frost returns - maybe the avocado will come back inside the house (providing it no longer has any bugs on it that crap on the floor).

Labels: Nature

We do see hedgehogs in our front garden from time to time but normally at night. I'm therefore a bit concerned that this young hedgehog might encounter some undesirables (AKA local kids) in its search for food.

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As we get so many birds visiting our garden (for its size), we joined in with the RSPB "Big Garden Birdwatch" to help them with trend data.

The birds are artificially drawn to our garden on the whole with peanut and bird seed dispensers - during the summer they tend not to bother at all. The most frequent visitors are Blue and Great Tits that take over the tree/bush/weed at the end of the garden where we hang the food dispensers. The occasional House Sparrow will turn up and wait its turn - the tits are quite territorial and not worried about chasing other birds off.

The birds are very messy when picking out food and many fall seeds to the ground which is where the Wood Pigeons come in (they also hop up onto the garden table where I have spilt peanuts and seeds when filling up the dispensers). A lonely Robin will hop down from the to along the floor too, and a pair of Dunnocks (Hedge Sparrows), especially under the fat balls.

Lastly a pair of blackbirds will root around in the rotten wood and under leaves looking for insects, like bargain hunters at a jumble sale.

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I had always thought that roses were trouble to transplant so when my brother-in-law gave us all the roses from the garden of his new house I wasn't expecting much success. But easy come, easy go if they died then no loss and as Gary didn't like roses then they'd have gone to the tip if we didn't take them.

He'd already shaken the soil off the roots (which made me wince inwardly) but, after replanting into our garden (and various pots when we ran out of space), they've survived. Even the most sickly seems to have come round with just some compost to kick it off and regular watering. Here's a peachy-pink rose (snapped July 13th):

Labels: Nature