May will see your garden and the surrounding countryside bursting into life. Occasional butterflies have been recorded in Leicestershire throughout the winter, with Peacock and Brimstone seen as early as January this year. One species that is commonly seen in spring is the Small Tortoiseshell, with its orange- brown wings and distinctive blue marks along the wing margins. They will have overwintered in hollow trees and woodpiles, or increasingly in sheds and garages. There are usually two broods each year in our locality, with the larvae feeding on nettles.
Although wood pigeons breed in every month of the year, now is the time when they are most amorous and they can often be seen ‘billing and cooing’, as shown here. The males indulge in display flights in the spring, often clapping their wings together before gliding down. They are primarily found in fields and woodland but seem increasingly fond of visiting garden feeders, possibly because they are made unwelcome in the farmers’ fields.
They are as greedy when eating in gardens as they are in their traditional habitat. Many householders try to put them off by using hanging feeders with small perches and filling them with smaller seeds that the pigeons favour less; on the plus side, they do tend to clear up food that has been spilled on the ground by other birds.
Frogspawn should be well- developed by now and if you take a close look at the newly- hatched tadpoles, you might be able to see their feathery gills extending either side of the body just behind the head. The gills are used to extract oxygen from the water and in the older tadpoles they will be replaced by internal gills. Up to this stage, they will have survived mostly on the jelly that surrounded them as spawn and on the algae that grew on the jelly. It has been estimated that only about five tadpoles will reach adulthood out of around three thousand eggs laid by the female frog, with newts, birds, fish and insect larvae eating most of them.
Spring is the time to have a good look around your garden and see what areas can be improved for wildlife. If you would like to increase the numbers of animals visiting, it is generally a good idea to plant more native plants. These are not always as glamorous as the exotic imports, but they will appeal to a wider variety of insects; these in turn will attract more birds and other insectivorous animals. My project for this year is to try to make my garden more appealing to hawk moths, some of the largest and most impressive of our moths. I have planted red valerian (a perennial) and viper’s bugloss (a biennial) which both have tubular flowers that are particularly attractive to Hummingbird Hawkmoth. I am also growing tobacco plants (Nicotiana ‘Sensation Mixed’) from seed, ready to be planted out when all risk of frost is past; these are reputed to be irresistible to Convolvulus Hawkmoth. Whether or not the target species turn up, we will hopefully be treated to a fine display of flowers with a variety of insects feeding on them.
May will see your garden and the surrounding countryside bursting into life. Occasional butterflies have been recorded in Leicestershire throughout the winter, with Peacock and Brimstone seen as early as January this year. One species that is commonly seen in spring is the Small Tortoiseshell, with its orange- brown wings and distinctive blue marks along the wing margins. They will have overwintered in hollow trees and woodpiles, or increasingly in sheds and garages. There are usually two broods each year in our locality, with the larvae feeding on nettles.
Although wood pigeons breed in every month of the year, now is the time when they are most amorous and they can often be seen ‘billing and cooing’, as shown here. The males indulge in display flights in the spring, often clapping their wings together before gliding down. They are primarily found in fields and woodland but seem increasingly fond of visiting garden feeders, possibly because they are made unwelcome in the farmers’ fields.
They are as greedy when eating in gardens as they are in their traditional habitat. Many householders try to put them off by using hanging feeders with small perches and filling them with smaller seeds that the pigeons favour less; on the plus side, they do tend to clear up food that has been spilled on the ground by other birds.
Frogspawn should be well- developed by now and if you take a close look at the newly- hatched tadpoles, you might be able to see their feathery gills extending either side of the body just behind the head. The gills are used to extract oxygen from the water and in the older tadpoles they will be replaced by internal gills. Up to this stage, they will have survived mostly on the jelly that surrounded them as spawn and on the algae that grew on the jelly. It has been estimated that only about five tadpoles will reach adulthood out of around three thousand eggs laid by the female frog, with newts, birds, fish and insect larvae eating most of them.
Spring is the time to have a good look around your garden and see what areas can be improved for wildlife. If you would like to increase the numbers of animals visiting, it is generally a good idea to plant more native plants. These are not always as glamorous as the exotic imports, but they will appeal to a wider variety of insects; these in turn will attract more birds and other insectivorous animals. My project for this year is to try to make my garden more appealing to hawk moths, some of the largest and most impressive of our moths. I have planted red valerian (a perennial) and viper’s bugloss (a biennial) which both have tubular flowers that are particularly attractive to Hummingbird Hawkmoth. I am also growing tobacco plants (Nicotiana ‘Sensation Mixed’) from seed, ready to be planted out when all risk of frost is past; these are reputed to be irresistible to Convolvulus Hawkmoth. Whether or not the target species turn up, we will hopefully be treated to a fine display of flowers with a variety of insects feeding on them.
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