Bird, wildlife and flower log, 26 August - 1 September 2013

There have been lots of little birds in the garden this week and the coal tits have made a return. They don't usually visit the garden much during the summer, but I expect to start seeing more of them from now on.

There are still quite a few large white and small white butterflies around. This photo I took a few weeks ago, and I finally got around to processing it. The butterfly is sat on sage. A couple more butterfly photos can be seen on the Insects page, one I took this weekend.

Large White Butterfly © 2013 Natasha Forder

Earlier in the week there was a lot of flapping going on in the pieris where some of the bird feeders are hung. It was a young greenfinch and next thing I saw it was being fed, I would think it was quite late in the year for that?

It is very quiet now for blackbirds. I fear that the Real Mr Black has been done away with. I can't decide if it is by Impostor Black, who has been around a little, or by the wing of his own youngster. I tend to only see one of the young ones now and this one I suspect is a male blackbird, looking at the colouring that is slowly emerging. I got quite fond of the Real Mr B, so I do hope the story above isn't true and that he is just lying low! The youngster has quite an attitude and I often see it chasing Impostor B around the garden!

The lilies stopped flowering but I've left the stems and this week I noticed lots of lily beetles on one of the plants. Before I got close enough I thought that finally we had some ladybirds, at this point I could just see red on the plant. When I got close I realised they were little beetles, but I had to look them up to see what type they were. Very apt name for them!

Birds	Wildlife and Insects	Flowers
Blackbird – male, female, juvenile	Grey squirrels	African daisy
Great spotted woodpecker - male, female, juvenile	Snail	Lavender
Chaffinch - male, female	Slug	Large Daisy
Greenfinch - male, female, juvenile	Backswimmer	Dahlia
Blue tit - adult, juvenile	Bees - various	Begonia
Great tit - adult, juvenile	Large white butterfly	Cats Ear
Dunnock - adult	Small white butterfly	Oregano
Robin - adult, juvenile	Lily beetle	Marjoram
Jay - adult, juvenile		Thyme
Magpie - adult		Montbretia
Crow - adult		Fuscia
Nuthatch - adult		Gaura cherry brandy
Woodpigeon - adult, juvenile		Gaura lindheimeri belleza
Collared dove - adult		Penstemon pensham czar
Coal tit		Lobelia x speciosa fan salmon
Goldfinch		Ceratostigma plumbaginoides
		Coreopsis grandiflora rising
		Coreopsis sunray
		Gaillardia sunburst yellow