Teasels starting to flower

Wildlife photos are hard to come by at the moment as I'm sort of house bound so I've resorted to taking pics of the garden. Sad, but I'm finding several new subjects of interest. Today's subjects are seeds and bulbs that were given to me by friends.

The teasels that were planted as seeds last year (thanks Robert) are now starting to come into flower and although there are only a few florets on the flower heads at the moment, they are already attracting a fair number of insects:

Hopefully the 20 or so flower heads will self-seed and we'll have a karger crop next year, although they don't actually flower until the second year so we'll have to wait a while for any significant increase.

The Crocosmia Lucifer (thanks Allan) are bursting with colour and really brighten up the whole garden:

Mink

We have a mink. It was seen killing a Canada Goose (an adult Canada Goose!) and swimming off to the far shore with it. I don't have a problem with introduced species killing introduced species :) However there is no guarantee it won't kill other creatures, like the fish it had when I saw it -

New Chicks

The Little Grebes that I've been monitoring for the last few weeks have 4 chicks and seem to be doing OK:

Meanwhile, over at Bempton Cliffs over the weekend there were several Gannet chicks to admire:

Langfield and Gaddings Dam

Walked to Gaddings Dam via Lee Dam and Langfield Edge this morning, my first walk onto the hills for a couple of months. It was a fine but blustery morning and a shower threatened to spoil the day but it didn't last long and the sun came out shortly after.

A Grey Heron watched a family of Canada Geese go by at Lee Dam -

and the same Canada Geese were eyed up by a passing Little Grebe -

A pair of Twite at Langfield were a good find, as was a juvenile Stonechat. At Gaddings Dam Swallows and Swifts were feeding over the water and a Ringed plover and a Dunlin were at the water's edge -

While walking back I almost stepped on this beetle. Turns out it is quite an uncommon beetle called Carabus nitens  It's a beauty!

Fledglings all over the place

Following the young GSW's seen earlier in the week, there were lots of young birds around today as I went for a walk down to Hardcastle Crags with Andy. Tons of Great Tits, a few Coal Tits and many Blue Tits flapping about finding their wings -

 A family of Mallards was on Gibson Mill pond (this image doesn't stand blowing up but looks OK at this small size) -

... and best of all, a group of 5 Treecreepers were being fed by an adult. Sorry about the quality here as the lighting was challenging to say the least -

Later we came upon a singing Wood Warbler and Andy managed a good pic (mine were rubbish as usual. I just can't get a decent Wood Warbler pic for some reason) -

Another Great Spotted Woodpecker

Lumbutts Clough and Blake Dean

Out and about for the first time in ages today while Lin was off in Manchester.

Heard a young Great Spotted Woodpecker in Lumbutts Clough and found it climbing up a tree about 20 yards from the nest hole -

Off to Blake Dean to see what was about, the answer unfortunately was not much  apart from the usual Curlews, Lapwings, Willow Warblers etc.. There was a Garden Warbler singing away though -

  

 A female Blackbird let me get really close before flying off -

...and a Wren was singing its head off. Nice to see one as they were really badly hit by the long, cold winter -

I'm back

Been away for a while and then my lovely wife was taken ill, but I'm back now so I'll pick up where I left off...

The Redpolls are visiting the niger feeders every day now with a max of 5 at any one time. Here are 3 of them

Orange Tip butterflies have been flying around recently -

and to end the first post for a while, here's a pic of fantastic reflections in Lee Dam early one morning