A puzzle that makes me sad

I’ve wanted to have birds visit my garden for a long time. I put out a feeder with some seed mix in and was being visited by pigeons regularly for a while, but nothing else, as far as I could see. Eventually I bought some Buggy Nibbles from the RSPB on special offer, and put them out. Then one sunny evening when I was pottering about outside a Great Tit flew to the feeder, shouted at me, took some food and left. I danced around in happiness a little bit. This visit was followed by one from a juvenile, who I spotted from my bedroom window one morning, and who took one of the pellets up to next door’s roof to eat it there. Then finally a couple of Blue Tits became regulars as well. It was making me ridiculously happy to hear them outside every morning and evening.

Then I ran out of the Buggy Nibbles. I went to buy some more but couldn’t find some so bought an equivalent – slightly different colour but same ingredients as far as I could tell, and the same size and shape. But did the birds go for them? No. They also didn’t go for peanuts or mealworms. This is what I finally took down today:

I succumbed and bought some more Buggy Nibbles. I hope the birds will return! But why oh why were they so fussy about this lot? It was all brand new, in the same feeder and in the same place from which they were taking the RSPB food, and all supposed to be food that tits like. But I have seen neither hide nor hair of a visiting bird since it’s been up, and that has been weeks now.

More mystery critters

I’ve taken photos of some little beings that I’ve wanted to identify over the last few weeks. Here are some of the pics and the names of their subjects if I’ve managed to work them out!

I was sitting eating lunch at work this week and noticed some movement out of the corner of my eye, look towards it, and saw this little one lying on his back by the fireplace wiggling his legs in the air. I picked him up, took him outside and put him on a rose, which he seemed to enjoy. I got home and looked him up and discovered that he was a Summer Chafer.

This one (actually there are two of them) is clinging to a buddleia outside my front door. I thought it looked like a giant ladybird larva, and I was right! Turns out it’s a pupa. Sometimes it’s sitting on the leaf like this, and sometimes sticking out at a right angle from it. Apparently it will stay in this stage for only about a week, so I’ll keep an eye on them to see when they leave.

This one was found at the start of May on a rock in some oak woodland in Northern Dartmoor. There were a few of them and they seemed to have just emerged from the leaf detrius on the ground. They were a sort of beautiful oil-green/black colour and had red heads (a clue!). After research, this was identified as a bloody-nosed beetle larve!

There were two of these waiting for me in the front garden when I returned from church one Sunday. They will become Garden Tiger moths. They ‘often fly after midnight’.

 

My first mystery guest

Here he is, this little fellow was wiggling around on one of the plants in the back garden. Who is he?

After a very quick internet search I’ve discovered that he is a brown-tail, and he’ll grow into a brown-tail moth! I don’t know what he’s doing on this garden weed, he’s supposed to like blackthorn and bramble. But hopefully he’ll find something he likes to eat in the garden and stay.

Now it’s time for some icecream and breadmaking.

In a whisper

Welcome to my quiet internet corner where I will sometimes be found surrounded by books, coffee cups and photographs, trying to identify what I’ve seen in my garden, and sometimes thinking out loud about things that I find beautiful. My plan is not to tell very many people about this blog, so if you’ve stumbled across it by accident, hello and happy exploring!