Tuesday, 1 September 2009

In the garden

Today Ian spotted two hawker dragonflies hawking over the garden and I was lucky enough to catch this female migrant hawker when it settled on a fence post:



Inspired by the dragonflies I decided to have a good root around the garden to see what wildlife I could find. The nettles at the bottom of the garden have been well and truly munched by these caterpillars of the comma butterfly





one of which had already formed a chrysalis:



We've kept a pile of logs and broken fence panel slats near the pond for nearly a year now in the hope that reptiles and amphibians would hide underneath. Until now we've only been rewarded with slugs, but today we were pleased to find an adult slow worm - the first we've seen this year:

3 comments:

holdingmoments said...

What a great find, the slow worm. I don't think I've ever seen one before.

Graham Edwards said...

Fascinating photos of the caterpillar and chrysalis.

Scriptor Senex said...

One would need Arctic expedition gear to travel as far as the bottom of our garden at the moment! Wonderful shot of the Migrant.