Destruction of Local Wildlife Habitats

It took me several days before I could do my 'daily' walk around the footpath in Toft that goes along the Mill Lane Drift down the side of the allotments and back along the stream into Toft Wood as I had heard the large machinery at work earlier and feared for the worst. 

We no longer have a stream - just a V-shaped deep drainage ditch and the Badgers and hedgerow birds (including Whitethroats, Dunnocks, Wrens and Blackbirds) have lost a valuable breeding habitat. 

Toft Invertebrates (2)

Here are yesterday's species. First the bees - Tawny Mining Bee (male), Early Bumble Bee and Hairy footed Bee (female); then the Hoverflies including a Platycheirus albimanus in the jaws of a Flower Spider, several other fly species including the Bee Fly and finishing with Box Moth caterpillars and my first record of a Caddis fly larva from my pond.

Toft Invertebrates (1)

The insects are certainly getting active now with lots of different species of flies and plant bugs in the garden so I have quite a task to get them all identified and the species catalogued for my Toft list and recorded on i-record.

'Painted' Portraits

An evening at Toft Photogroup playing around with a slide projector, some old slides and a couple of willing models, commencing with  'Van Gogh' portrait

First Wildlife Survey in Toft 2024

The present warm temperatures (up to 18 degrees yesterday) have certainly woken up the insects in Toft. Athough the two hoverflies are the same as last year around this time - Episyrphus balteatus and Eristalis tenax - there were lots of different Diptera species, a new bug to me - the Jumping Nettle louse, lots of Ladybirds including another new species, the Pine Ladybird, an interesting Door Snail, three species of spider, and four Hymenoptera including the expected Early Bumblebee - Bombus  pratorum.