Wildlife 2007

[mark smyth]

1st and second show a Green Jay - Cyanocorax yncas

[Anthony Darby]

I was half right

[Lesley Cox]

Luscious lips indeed Maggi. Can't you just feel them nibbling round your ear? Makes me shudder all over to think of it

[mark smyth]

Just noticed that once opened the Dunlin is actually a Turnstone

[ranunculus]

Really cruel that is Mark....opening birds..... (but I knew that you would leave no Stone unTurned...thanks for the identity check). The pretty little thing didn't hang around long enough for me to ask.
So, is this of the same ilk?

[mark smyth]

Yes. Depending on when it was taken they are either moulting in to or out of breeding colours

[Anthony Darby]

Saw my first Red Admiral (Vanessa atalanta) yesterday. I'm not convinced they survive our winter, and the freshness of this specimen indicated an early summer migrant from the continent. Alas it didn't stay long enough for a pic. I did find a Peppered Moth (Biston betularia) on my house wall. This is the moth in the example of natural selection in action, although it is known that industrial melanism has affected at least 100 species of moths. The other pic is of a North American Robin Moth (Hyalophora cecropia). This lonely female is awaiting a mate, but the dozen or so cocoons in a cage in the greenhouse remain firmly dormant.

[mark smyth]

both are very nice especially the American one. Why doesnt she fly away?

[Anthony Darby]

She's still there Mark. Silkmoths (Saturnidae, of which our Emperor Moth is the only British example) do not feed and need to conserve their energy. She will fly once she has mated. Gene Stratton-Porter , in 'Moths of the Limberlost', dramatically tells of a large female she put out one night on her porch at Limberlost Cottage in Indiana. By midnight hundreds of males had been attracted from miles around by her scent. Apparently she mated with a small, scruffy but persistant male. Having mated she will fly off and lay her eggs and die within a week. Unmated, she could live for three weeks. Mine is still on the wisteria waiting.

[mark smyth]

you never know! someone unknown to you might have a recently hatched male. I know you've said in the past but how is it you are able to buy these? Do you buy caterpillars or cocoons?

[John Forrest]

It's a while since I have caught up with the super pics on this thread. I particularly like some of Cliff's birds and the crock pot. Also the Robin moth on the Wisteria (green with envy of Anthony on both counts, never seen the moth and my Wisteria has failed to flower AGAIN despite fulfilling all the cultural advice)

[Anthony Darby]

These came as cocoons from a friend in New York. This is a good place to start: The EntomolgicaL Livestock Group  http://www.pwbelg.clara.net/index.html

John, my sister-in-law bought two wisterias over 18 years ago. They didn't flower so 12 years ago she dug them up and for a few months they sat in a couple of roughly dug holes in my garden. I then planted them and they have flowered every year since. Two summers ago I let one grow further along the pergola and last year it produced very few flowers at this time, but, as in France (I have noticed) it produced a few in August. Last summer I pruned it in June, July, August and September: in fact, every time it produced a new set of long, whippy, metre-long shoots. It got another prune at Christmas and they both have been amazing this year.

[Lesley Cox]

Really cruel that is Mark....opening birds..... (but I knew that you would leave no Stone unTurned...thanks for the identity check). The pretty little thing didn't hang around long enough for me to ask.
So, is this of the same ilk?

This looks exactly like our native (endemic) banded dotterel, Charadrius bicinctus.

[mark smyth]

3 counts of sad wildlife news from my garden. The two queen Bumble bees have failed to make nests. The gales of last weekend have caused the tits to abandon their chicks possible to to being scared when the tree was almost blown down. Maybe the the winds meant the parents coulnt find enough food

[Anthony Darby]

Put this in 'flowering now', but it should be here: Just managed to snap this Honey Bee (Apis melifera) in the bulb house visiting a Bug Orchid (Anacamptis fragrans). Its head is covered in pollinia.