The Wellington Nature Blog @wellynature - Tumblr Blog

The frogs have been busy in our pond.

Things in the Moth Trap

I haven’t written much recently because of school work. But here are some things from our moth trap in the last few weeks.

There were over 20 cockchafers...

...a scorched carpet...

...a mocha...

...and some muslin moths.

#moths #nature #wildlife

Down the River Again

We went fishing today. Lots of good things found and released.

Bullheads and minnows...

...mayfly and caddisfly larvae...

...and some eggs.

#nature #pond #pondlife

A nice caterpillar.

#nature #caterpillar

More Wildflowers

Here are a few more wildflowers that we found in hedgerows near our house.

A bee on a cat’s ear flower.

Germander speedwell is such a pretty blue.

A vetch I can’t identify....

.. and plenty of Stitchwort, here with a selection of other plants below.

There’s even some primroses still about.

#wildflowers #nature

Test Pit

Yesterday we opened a 1m by 1m test pit in our garden to look for archaeology under the surface.

This is the test pit so far...

...and this is the seive to sort through the spoil.

#archaeology #socialdistancing

Some More Wild Flowers

It’s wonderful what you find in hedgerows.

Bluebells...

...wild garlic (my favourite)...

..red dead nettle...

...and garlic mustard.

#nature #wildflowers

Early Purple Orchid

#nature #wildflowers

Tit Nest

My mum has a government license to study birds. So my family have put up some nest boxes for birds in our garden to study in the spring time. This is inside one of the boxes and it has a blue tit nest or a great tit nest as we have seen both visiting the nest box.

#nature #wildlife #nest #birds

A few lovely views into the distance

Above and below are views of the nature reserve near my house.

Here’s a view of a small pond.

A fox running across a sheep field with either a pheasant or a rabbit in its mouth.

#nature #socialdistancing

Clearing Out the Pond

Every few years, we clear out our pond and take an inventory.

For the first time, we had newts, which was very exciting. We think they might be palmates, and one seems to be ready to lay eggs.

Of course, there were lots of frogs of all sorts of different colours.

We returned the tadpoles we were keeping in a aquarium to the pond to join the ones that had hatched from the frogspawn we’d left in there.

There were also two dragonfly larvae, those possible more we didn’t find. They’re hawkers I think, but I don’t know the exact species.

#nature #pond #pondlife #socialdistancing #wildlife #newt #frog

Angle Shades and Other Insects

A few days ago when I were clearing out the garden I found two chrysalises, one of them emerged today and we found out it was an angle shades moth.

I also found found a few other insects.

Angle shades...

... some sort of parasitic wasp...

... and a shield bug.

#nature #moths

Butterflies and Otter Poo

Today we went to the river and saw loads of butterfly's but could not take pictures of all of them but we found:

orange tips,

brimstones,

peacocks,

tortoise shells,

and a holly blue on some holly.

also we found some otter spraint (poo).

#nature

Cowslip

My mum and dad were both in a meeting today, so here’s a picture of a cowslip in our ‘meadow’.

#nature #wildflowers #socialdistancing

Blossom

Today I thought I would tell you about some of the blossoms that I had seen on various walks many of them are found in woodland but can be found elsewhere too.

Cherry. (Out of all of these the cherry is my favourite)...

...blackthorn (my mum likes the berries from this, called sloes, for a drink)...

...and apple. Great for the autumn time when the apples are ripe.

#nature #blossom

Moth Trapping Part 2

Yesterday we set the moth trap out again as we knew that someone else in our village was setting theirs out too so we thought that they would let my mum know what they got and we would let them know what we got so we could compare.

We got:

5 Common Quaker

4 Early Grey

2 Hebrew Character

1 Herald (I’ve only seen this in a cave before)