This is my pond in January. I intend to post a picture each month to show it developing.

Garden nightmare!

Another garden spider hard at work remaking his web after the heavy rain had destroyed it.

New shieldbug

Found a Dock bug (coreus marginatus) on the hops.















Amazing how the angle of the light changes the look - this is the same individual.

Spider City

I have one hop plant in the garden and today I found all these spiders on it at once.

zebra spider (salticus scenicus)















Probably a garden spider (araneus diadematus)















Not sure about this one

Ladybird for lunch!

I thought this spider had an egg sac till I looked closely at the picture and realised it had caught a harlequin ladybird!

Common green shieldbug (palomena prasina)
Seen on a hop plant in a sunny position














This seems to be a 4th instar of the same. I thought it was a different insect until I started to research shield bugs.














Forest bug (pentatoma rufipes)
Seen by the shed at the bottom of the garden - very shady and overshadowed by trees.

Garden visitor

Wet day today. Spotted this visitor outside our patio doors. Not here directly because of the pond, but I'm expecting frog spawn next spring.
It is a common frog (rana temporaria) identified thanks to Froglife.
You can record sightings at Frogwatch.

Started planting

Log pile using bits of the old apple tree from the garden. Greater pond sedge beyond the logs, iris setosa (purple) at the back, creeping Jenny at the edge of the pond. Purple loosestrife in the water at the back, golden striped rush in the water at the front, and umbrella flat sedge in front of the log pile.

First visitor

Amazingly, before the water had been there for 24 hours, I had a visit from a bright green dragonfly checking out the pond! I didn't manage to get a photo, but I'm pretty sure it was an emperor dragonfly (anax imperator).

I have a pond!

Not quite finished yet, but undoubtedly a pond.

More than a year later!

Not a lot has happened in the last year. Just weeded out brambles from the potential pond area and weeded the patio. Spotted a comma butterfly (Polygania c.album), but unfortunately had no camera

Hummingbird hawkmoth

Macroglossum stellatarum

This was the best photo I could get of this one, but it was in our garden.

Here is a rather better picture of one taken last year in my mother-in-law's garden in Cambridgeshire.

Birds seen: nuthatch

A little bit of sunshine among the showers

Hoverfly on
Smooth Catsear
(hypochaeris glabra)

2-spot ladybird

2-spot ladybird
(Adalia bipunctata)

There are 42 species of ladybird resident in the British Isles and this is one type of 2-spot ladybird (although it seems to have more than 2 spots at first glance, only 2 of the markings are spots!)
Gardeners' friends, ladybirds feed on aphids and other garden pests.

Birds seen: Great tit, dunnock, woodpigeon

Small Magpie moth
eurrhypara hortulata
I saw this one flying and followed it to where it settled underneath a leaf - no wonder I haven't noticed them before.

Unidentified caterpillar

Haven't been able to identify this one yet.



Birds seen: Long-tailed tits (1 feeding young), Blue tit, Woodpigeon

Persistence pays off

I've been stalking these moths, trying to get a better picture, and I think I've succeeded

Speckled bush cricket

Leptophyes punctatissima

A real example of how macro photography brings you closer to nature. This little creature looked pure green to the naked eye, but is so much more fascinating in close-up. The speckles even extend to his antennae!

The Beginning

I have decided to document the wildlife in my garden, in Clewer, Windsor, Berks, UK.








Pyrausta purpuralis



This day moth is about the size of my thumb nail and loves the thyme and marjoram outside our kitchen. Clouds of them flit round the herbs, basking briefly, but rarely long enough to photograph.

Birds seen: Robin, Blue tit, Ring-necked parakeet