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Saw a recently flattened frog as I cycled up Court Lane today.


Huge bumblebee apparently on a recce, carefully inspected indoors then left again.


Two blue tits chasing each other around the garden looking very much like a couple.


Magnolias halfway open and the trees that look like a winter cherry (not sure what they're called) are starting to scatter petals like confetti in my road.


It's like the bit in Seven Brides for Seven Brothers when the snow starts to melt.

dimples Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

> Do you recognise these ducks I spotted at peckham

> rye park ? Their feathers were beautiful !



Egyptian Goose dimples. Hyde park has quite a few, could be blow ins from there... https://www.rspb.org.uk/wildlife/birdguide/name/e/egyptiangoose/

the-e-dealer Wrote:

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> Whats this butterfly in my front garden - it flew

> away before I could get closer !


xxxxxxx


Looks like a Peacock? Butterfly, that is :)


ETA: http://www.ukbutterflies.co.uk/species.php?vernacular_name=Peacock

  • 2 weeks later...

We have been on a Dawn Chorus walk in Horniman Gardens this morning (starting at 5am!!!!)


It was led by a very knowledgeable, enthusiastic and - importantly - audible guy from a company with the excellent name of Bird Brain :)


Many birds are already nesting and some already have young.


We heard - and in theory are now able to identify the songs of - blackbird, robin, blue tit, great tit, goldcrest, wren, nuthatch, song thrush, dunnock, wood pigeon, green woodpecker, one of the spotted woodpeckers but can't remember which, redwing (I think), magpie, parakeet, crow.


Well obviously we already knew some of them .....


Well worth making the effort to drag ourselves out of bed and going out into the freezing cold dawn, though we did have to go back to bed after we'd had breakfast :)


Apparently there are at least thirty types of bird at various times in the gardens, probably more. Didn't hear any house sparrows but came back to see several in my garden :)

  • 4 weeks later...

I saw a bee-fly for the first time in my garden in late April last year - and only knew what it was because someone else posted about them on the forum.


They're like tiny, woolly humming-birds. I saw my first of 2014 in the garden this morning.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bombyliidae

I thought they were gorgeous, until I discovered that some species need to live as parasites in other insects, before they emerge as winged adults.


First Orange Tip butterfly seen this week, flying alongside the trees of Camberwell Old Cemetery.


It tells you here what the larval food plants are, worth knowing so as not to be over zealous with the 'weeding'


http://www.britishbutterflies.co.uk/species-info.asp?vernacular=Orange-tip

What a great thing to be able to see in your own garden!


I'm excited because for the first time ever I have a clear view of a robin's nest from my sitting room window! They've nested in a hole some distance up a substantial tree trunk. Peeking out this morning I could see a substantial young fledgling sticking its head out eagerly - waiting to be fed. I'm being very careful not to go anywhere near.


I learnt recently that robins can nest two or three times in a season if the weather's good.

I took a very spring-like walk down Green Dale just now. In addition to all the different bright greens of the trees coming into leaf - poplar, oak, ash, birch, sycamore, willow and elder - there was a host of birds, visible or audible - starling, house sparrow, dunnock, blue tit, great tit, robin, wren, blackbird, mistle thrush, chaffinch, goldfinch, feral pigeon, wood pigeon, carrion crow, magpie, green woodpecker and greater spotted woodpecker. Not bad for a ten-minute stroll. We?re very lucky to live where we do.

I love cutting through Green Dale on my way to Denmark Hill, but haven't ever seen/heard quite such a variety of birds. Maybe it's the Bank Holiday that brings them all out!


Speaking of nests - I leave the combings from our dog in the garden, and by the end of the day, it's all been taken to line nests. It's very funny seeing a tiny blue tit flying off carrying a ball of dog-fluff amost as bit as itself!

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