First Insects etc of the Year

 The warm sunshine yesterday brought out quite a lot of flies, spiders and bees in the garden. Recovering from surgery is frustrating as I can manage the camera and macro lens but no fill-in flash and chasing bees is definitely out! Anyway here five invertebrates to start 2025 garden records

Toft Garden Trees 1

After sessions at Paxton Pits identifying trees, I decided a catalogue of what is in my Toft (Cambridgeshire) garden would be a good plan. Hopefully this first batch are correct - note to self - label twigs as I remove from tree/bush as some are very difficult to distinguish.  We start with an oak kindly given to me as a birthday present about 20 years ago, now a fair-sized tree that needs the leader shoot cut back every year or two - host to a huge number of insects - thanks Tricia Kreyer

Lichens in Toft

Slowly building up a library of the lichens growing in our village. Here a few from our garden and Toft Wood - experimenting with backgrounds etc. Still to add genus/species names!!

Birds at Our Feeder

Lots of squabbling at the feeders today with a very large flock of mixed finches attacking the sunflower seeds and each other with a lot of aggression. The Robin sneaks in while they are squabbling. Sunlit, through 3 panes of glass!! I need to work out positioning for a better background.

My Garden Birds

The birds were very busy feeding in the garden this morning with flocks of Goldfinches and Greenfinches visiting the garden feeders and pairs of Long-tailed Tits, Blue Tits, Great Tits, and Blackbirds all looking as if they are pairing and starting to set up territories. All three of the Dove family - Rock Doves, Wood Pigeon and Collared Dove, pair of Dunnocks, Robin, Chaffinch, Song Thrush and Wren (too fast to photograph!).. Also visiting in recent weeks Tree Creeper,  Starling, House Sparrow, Jackdaw, Redwing, Fieldfare, Jay, Magpie and Pied Wagtail 

I came across my garden list for Jan - Feb  in 1968-71. It had all these except Collared Dove and Stock Dove and also included Bullfinch, Marsh Tit, Turtle Dove, Corn Bunting, Yellow Hammer (still in Hedgerows), Tree Sparrow - all declined or absence with a change in the arable farming techniques.

Toft Garden Mosses

A start on the mosses in the garden - very tentative IDs!!