Nature notes - 'new' creatures spotted in ED

[Nero]

Today I've found out, with the help of someone on this site, the name of a creature I'd never seen before in my garden. It was a hoverfly, Latin name Volucella bombylans

It'd be good if other posters could keep an eye out for something they've seen for the first time, or something they've seen for a while but are not sure what it is and put it in this thread? Nero

[cookie]

Loads of these little buggers (Rosemary Leaf Beetles) in our rosemary and sage at the moment. Decimating the plants, and every time they're removed more turn up.

Seen plenty of Harlequin Ladybirds too.

[snorky]

Parakeets - squaking buggers

Woodpeckers - noisy buggers

big scarey flying stag beetles

newts

lizard

todas by the bucketful

[LostThePlot]

snorky Wrote:

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

> Parakeets - squaking buggers

> Woodpeckers - noisy buggers

> big scarey flying stag beetles

> newts

> lizard

> todas by the bucketful

Not strictly on topic, but I need to tell someone.... I nearly cyled over a Gecko the other day in South Wimbledon....poor bugger was deadun already when I went back to check I wasn't dreaming.

[Brendan]

i saw a big white-ish bird with bright blue wings in my garden the other day. Have no idea what it was but then not knowing much about birds I wouldn't. Looked like something you would get in Africa.

[Nero]

Thought I had posted this, but maybe not. I saw a jay for the second time in E Dulwich. It was at the back of the RC school, on Friern Rd, near Etherow Junction. I have heard say by RSPB types that the jay is quite uncommon away from woodlands, and is not that visible even in the parks around here. Nero

[snorky]

Jays - noisy buggers - theyre in ny garden most days im sure

[spadetownboy]

no word of a lie this one i was bombing down the a2 to folkestone last december to catch the early morning shuttle to france for a bit of xmas shopping,when i almost took out a baby kangaroo sitting in the middle of the carriageway. kent poilce god bless em did actually take me seriously when i rang them up to report it in, we stuck it in the back of the x-trail and handed it over to the plod when thay appeared. they took my details and i got a call from the owners of a wild life place in wingham in kent who had been broken into the previous night and various animals had escaped including half a dozen joeys turned out my little fella had made it about 6 or 7 miles across fields before my bull bars almost decapitated him(knew they,d come in useful one day.anyway back on topic no exotic animals in my gaff except for stag beetles i must be getting 3-4 a day in the back garden and my little pup is torturing each one in the manner of a cat with a mouse. i have looked them up and apparantly they are an endangered species and confined usually to the south and south east.

[Brendan]

That's the one Nero! Was in my garden up at the top of friern rd.

[Asset]

I was gonna say - does this not link in to the other thread

[Bleep]

There's a pond at the end of Plough Lane that I didn't know about until today.

[SimonM]

>>I have heard say by RSPB types that the jay is quite uncommon away from woodlands, and is not that visible even in the parks around here<<

The people we bought this house from o Underhill Road proudly told us they often saw a jay on the garden - and sure enough we have spotted one a couple of times a year every year since. Surely it cannot be the same one each year? ;-)

[TillieTrotter]

I had three of them in my garden last year. They are called Eurasian Jays.

[Asset]

I regularly see jays too.

[Jah Lush]

Jays? Common as muck where I am. See 'em all the time.