The foxes have been quiet for the past day (just a fleeting sighting of one trotting down the road this evening), but some of the other regular garden life has re-emerged. Here's a small selection of shots taken over the past 24 hours.
The wood mouse was back on the feeder
This strange bug was crawling on the pond surface
And a caterpillar was crawling out of the pond
A pale newt was swimming
And a darker newt too, underneath a grub.
10 Comments
Interesting shot of the bug, i wonder what it is? The woodmouse looks as hungry as ever lol:P
Great activity in the pond during winter, isn`t it? Here, we have a snow and low teperatures and sparrows and pigeons are the only animals to see…
Weird bug; don't think I've come across that species. I must say that I never considered that ponds could hold so much wildlife at the end of December!
Excellent photos. The water drops on the bug give the photo good scale.
Thanks Lois. I only spotted it while I was trying to photograph the newts. I would have tried for a better angle, but it was a little bit too near the centre of the pond.
Darko, I'm quite surprised to see quite so much activity at this time of year although our winters seem to be quite mild in recent years.
Mark, I've no idea what the bug is. It looks a bit like a shield bug of some sort, but I find these very tricky to identify (even with an excellent field guide). The mouse is easy though: it's a 'greedy' mouse 😉
Adele, it's certainly got livelier in the pond since the weather warmed up. It only seems to go compeltely quiet when it ices over.
That bug looks like one of teh shield bugs, possibly a forest bug but its the wrong time of year I think. Who knows with all the december flowering daffodils it could be one!
As for the newts and frogs – are they active all year round in your pond!? I haven't seen an amphibian atleast since november.
It could have fallen in and crawled across. As for the amphibs… they went dormant for a few days (well the pond froze over), but the warmish weather (relatively speaking) seems to be playing havoc with their hibernation routines.