Heron's Hunting

Heron on a shed roof.

  Two herons have been hunting round the allotments taking fish and frogs from allotment ponds.

 I hear they have been taking fish from garden ponds over a wide area.

Heron taking off.

Early Bird

This Fox seems to be around early in the morning or maybe he's up late.

Allotment Foxes

These are some of the foxes that roam the allotments at night. You will see their foot prints in the soil on your plot or holes where they have been digging for food, worms or beetles, or burying food to collect at a later date. Sometimes i find Goose eggs when digging my plot that have been buried by foxes.

There are three different individuals hear, we have seen them all before earlier in the year.One with a damaged or missing right ear,and another with only one eye.

Brock's Back

Brock's becoming a frequent visitor to the Allotments it comes for treats i leave out for him/her,its very cautious and flees when it spots the camera.

Curiosity got the better of it and it came back later to check out the camera coming so close you can see its breath in the night air.

Wood Mouse

This is on the edge of a small woods just outside the Allotment fence. Wood mice eat seeds and nuts in summer and autumn when available which they store, and small Snails Beetles and Moth larvae in spring they live in underground tunnels.

 

There is a pair of eyes in the bushes watching this mouse just to the top left of the video.

Allotment Duck

The Allotment duck turned up in the car park today with nine ducklings this is her second lot this year.(she lost the first)She builds her nest on a shed roof but she now has to get them to Debdale reservoir about half a mile away.

she took them to the pond behind the stores but will soon leave walking through the streets with them to the reservoir.

I last saw her walking down the Allotment path with her ducklings with a Heron circling over head.

Butterfly Larvae

It has been a bad year for Butterflies and Honey Bees i have only seen a few Butterflies this year i spotted this on the Allotments on Nettles.

Nettles are the food plant of a lot of Butterfly larvae, this web is made by the larvae of the Small Tortoiseshell, these webs extend over patches of nettles, with the larvae resting communally or feeding on the leaves.

On emerging from their eggs, the larvae build a communal web, usually at the top of the nettle, from which they emerge to bask and feed. As the larvae grow, they move to new plants, building new webs along the way. This leaves a trail of webs, decorated with shed larval skins and droppings, that show the passing of time, and allows the patient observer to trace the larvae all the way back to the plant where the eggs were laid

Larvae have several techniques to avoid predation. When disturbed, a group of larvae will often jerk their bodies from side to side in unison, which must be a formidable sight to any predator. The larvae will also regurgitate green fluid and will, if necessary, curl up in a ball and drop to the ground. Larvae feed by both day and night and there are 4 moults in total.