fledgling goldfinches

Around 7.30pm tonight there was a loud tweeting commotion going on at our back yard  feeders - four fledgling goldfinches arrived to get their supper with their doting parents before flying off somewhere safe for the night, I will await their return tomorrow and hope that all four will be enjoying breakfast here too!

I am also hoping for better light tomorrow and an early visit from our window cleaner would be useful too he's only been once this year!

More pressed flowers and leaves

As spring moves up a notch, more flowers are now available from my garden, some would be considered as weeds and some are in our hedges, others are in my flower beds.

what can you identify?

The emergence of the hoverflies

You have to love spring - everything starts to wake up again, the plants are starting to grow, hedges are starting to leaf, blackthorn is in full flower and insects and other invertebrates are emerging! hundreds of them this week in my garden! I had to get ID confirmation, but now I know these are a species of Eristalis hoverflies also called drone flies as they look very similar to a honey bee drone.

eristalis sp. hoverflies

eristalis sp. hoverflies

eristalis sp. hoverflies

eristalis sp. hoverflies

The Eristalis have a wing vein with a very distinctive loop which you can see in this photo

eristalis sp. hoverfly

My garden also has many spiders you can see them all dart for cover when you get too close, but these Nursery web spiders don't seem so keen to hide so I managed to photograph several of them!

Nursery Web Spider

Nursery Web Spider

Nursery Web Spider

Nursery Web Spider

and when I was photographing the spiders I also spotted this pretty little woundwort shieldbug

woundwort shieldbug

photography by Angela Smith