Wildlife summer 2012

[mark smyth]

Anyone know this caterpillar? It was feeding on a sycamore leaf

[mark smyth]

Tom can you post a photo to show where you want to put your nest boxes?

The caterpillar is a Four spotted footman

[Peter Maguire]

The caterpillar is a Four spotted footman

Well it can't count, I counted 9 pairs of spots, that added up to eighteeen when I went to school. 

[TC]

Mark
The house is on the right.  I would propose sighting the nest boxes roughly just below the apex.  My problem is, would the birds have enough room to swoop in and land.

The concrete nest box has not been used for 3 years.  When the old wooden one rotted away after 30 years, the Blue Tits used the concrete box once and have never come back.  Swifts are not very common here.   They fly by regularly but do not seem to hang about ast hey used to in years gone by.

We did have an Alpine Swift hanging about the garden in November over 30 years ago.  It was last seen heading due west towards the island of Arran.
I don't think it would have lasted too long after this !

[mark smyth]

Go for it Tom.  Buy or make nest boxes with front entrance. The box in the link, made from exterior ply, cost under £5.
http://saveourswifts.co.uk/nest-sites-home-made.htm

A handy man could make you a nice triangular 3 chamber box to match the gable angle

Looking forward to photos on Monday 

[TC]

It's obviously too late for nesting now so this will give me something to do in the later part of the year.  I have plenty of marine grade plywood in store so that's no problem.

"Tape luring".  I presume this requires an external speaker next to the boxes.  At present I have no "stand alone players".  A 70 foot cable from my HiFi CD deck is a non starter so I would need some form of player.  CD or MP4 ?  Presumably there would need to be a facility for looping the playback.  How is this done ?

One concern I would have is the volume  needed to attract the birds and how long it would be played.  Swifts have a particularly penetrating screech which may not go down too well with the neighbours !

[mark smyth]

By building it/them now and playing the CD lure you should be able to attract non breeders who will remember the location for next year.

I have a new pair that moved in a week ago and carrying in feathers

I use a cheap car tweeter hanging on a cup hook to play the CD. I have players in the shed and spare bedroom. Do you have plugs in the garage? I can copy my CD. The CD is a looped duet.

I can hear my CD 50 paces away. Neighbours have never asked what it is and passers by never look

[fredg]

Ok so there I am doing a small repair to the front wall on the house when I noticed all these tiny red dots moving about.
What are they and what would they find to feed on on there?

[mark smyth]

Velvet spiders mites that eat other insects

[ronm]

Maggie it baffles me how much some folk just don't get it,for me there isn't nothing like seeing a natural wonder for the first time be it plant or animal ect,two people gave me a really confused look as they walked past me lying down taking these pics not knowing that this moth has just accomplished a massive migration for an insect and i am privileged  to have it feed on my garden....Does life get any better.

Superb Davey.  Not the easiest moth to net for egg laying, never mind photograph! A very easy species to breed at home though ( like many of the Sphingidae ), and I would urge anyone who has the least interest in the Lepidoptera to have a go with this species. The feeling upon release of the imagines is one of the best  . Usually we get plenty here on the East Coast, so far this year ....none

Fred, re: your mites, there are many species in UK. Some are predators, others involved in the processes of decomposing organic matter while some are important agricultural, veterinary and medical pests.

[Hoy]

The rather nice weather the last days has got the insects out, notabely the honeybees and bumblebees. But others too like different beetles and hooverflies and the predators of course!

[johnw]

You might enjoy this film on The Ocean.  Stop it first and allow it to fully download as it will otherwise stop and start - it's in HD.

http://www.youtube.com/embed/mcbHKAWIk3I

johnw  +26c and sunny.

[Brian Ellis]

Incredible reef and such vibrant colours too.  Thanks John.

[ronm]

Beautiful pictures Hoy.

The Crab Spiders are so easily missed, they're very sneaky!

Also something very weird has taken place here I think. Seems to me that Gullbasse 2012-07-10 is Protaetia ( Eupotosia ) affinis var. pyrochroa, and Bille 2012-07-10 would seem to be a sp. of Pyrochroa, although I am unfamilar with which species. !! Very  . Did you realise this when you posted, and were teasing us?

[Lesley Cox]

Incredible reef and such vibrant colours too.  Thanks John.

I'm sure you've often thought, as I have that all that stunning corals and under sea things, could well be alpine plants. OK, not the fish, they're a bonus, but the colours and shapes and beautiful construction of almost all, could be vegetable sheep, androsaces, saxifragas and hundreds of other above ground plants, if it were not for the sea.