Blogs

Morning all, Did you all take part in the RSPB's Big Garden Birdwatch? Has any one seen the small wasp nest , about the size of a golfball, in the back of the Warbler Hide? Andy Schofield , who is the RSPB warden from The Lodge nature reserve, identified it as a paper wasp nest...

The first thing I do every morning when I arrive at Titchwell is to check the gents toilet walls for insects and spiders. (Luckily not many people have witnessed this odd behaviour!) Apart from the potential for losing friends, it has netted me several species on my wildlife list, the latest two being...

I FOUND THIS FLY ON A GATE HAPPILY BLOWING RASPBERRYS

Still on the wing and looking for lunch... Migrant Hawker (Basil Thornton)

The other day I wrote a blog about "the start of something (that will be) wonderful..." (Click on the words to open the blog post), well I wanted to show you what it is! Over the half term we had our Wacky Wildlife Adventures - the holiday activities for the kids. Well we made this fantastic...

What an extraordinary fortnight. With temperatures ranging from 12c to 29c, no wonder our wildlife has been confused! Four new species have found their way onto my list, which now stands at 909. Three were moths: pink-barred sallow , black rustic and satellite; and one was a plant - wild marjoram . The...

Hi Dye This sounds like a really interesting project and it would be great if you could share some pictures of the site with us so we can see what it looks like. Doggie has given a couple of good links there for planting advice and ponds, a water feature has great benefits to various wildlife and...

One of the most common things to find underneath a log or a rock is an earwig, and because of their name and their vicious looking pincers they are almost always met with a shriek of alarm. Which is a shame really because in actual fact earwigs are some of the most interesting mini-beasts we have here...

A very blustery walk around the trails today with 'orrible stinky dust blowing of the landfill site and little in the way of any visible bird movement bar a few Meadow Pipits heading south. We did however see two very smart Wheatears , 14 Little Egrets and a Green Sandpiper on the way round and a...

A blazing start to October will this week turn to a more traditional autumnal month , with forecasters predicting snow in the UK before Christmas - yes it's just a couple of months away! So, it's time to put away the shorts and crop-tops and dig out the woolies and hats with ear-flaps. If...

Being a beetle with a long snout means that you are a weevil! Two of the grooviest ones that we have at Rainham Marshes are the big and chunky fat nosed one and the proposterously long thin Gonzo-nosed one..... Enjoy! Liparus coronatus the Fat Boy Mega Weevil Curculio glandium the Gonzo...

While I was counting butterflies recently, I found this monster hoverfly enjoying the fruits of the careful verge maintenance near the Buddleia Loop viewing shelter. The hornet-like size (25-30mm head to tail) indicates that it's Volucella zonaria. The proboscis appears quite large, but that may...

Looking around it is amazing to see how many buddleias have all but finished flowering already, this got me looking around to see what other late summer blooms are about that attract insects. Verbenas and lavender are still buzzing, heather is now coming into its best and Michaelmas daisies should be...

Took this on a visit to RSPB site at Cliffe Pools, spotted these at the top of the dry grassland

Bees love clover and keeping at least part of the lawn uncut through the spring and summer can attract in a whole host of different invertebrates to those that you will find in short-mowed-to-within-an-inch-of-its-life lawns. Diversity in grass length is the key to a wildlife rich lawn (as well as ditching...

We're looking to put a border stretching from the rear patio to the chicken pen at the top of the garden, along the fenceline boundary with our neighbours property. It's about 20 feet (6m) long or thereabouts. It faces due East, so gets sun in the morning, but by late morning it will be largely...

Just a quick pic post to show one of the bees enjoying the shrubby honeysuckle last week!

4-spot chaser dragonfly taken in Spain 2010 using the Fuji S200EXR

Dragonfly taken in Spain 2010 with the Fuji S200EXR

Hey everyone! It just occured to me I haven't said hello yet, bad me, anyway! I'm Olivia, I'm 19 and from Gloucestershire and I love garden birds! I always get excited when we're getting the food out for winter, almost every year we seem to get a couple of new birds to the garden, this...

I don't have a picture of one with the wings open myself, i have not found any willing to cooperate! However the UK moths website has managed to persuade one!

Hello Incorporating wildlife features into outbuildings is a great idea and the options are endless...well, there are quite a few! Swallows generally nest close by to their main foraging areas such as open grassland so if you do not get them around you may struggle to encourage them in with artificial...

Hello James and welcome. Hope you find plenty of info and inspiration here... Try this..RSPB Homes for Wildlife Fact Sheet no 21. http://www.rspb.org.uk/hfw/factsheets/HFW21.pdf

Male BT Skimmer on one of the paths at Radipole.

There are loads of insects - hoverflies, butterflies, bees and beetles - in the flowerbeds