Day 23 - 30 Days Wild - An evening canal walk

* Today's random act of wildness - canal walk *

Day 23 we ventured down the canal which is only 10 minutes from where I live. The time was around 7pm so the light was fading a little. When we got there, there were lots of bull water lilies flowering and lots of insects around. Here's what we discovered on the small stretch of canal we walked...

The canal full of flowers

Wildling with the lilies in the background.

Brown china-mark moth

Some strange beetle that needs IDing

Tiny Froglet

Trying to help him off the pavement before he gets step on

Another insect that needs identifying

Common green grasshopper

Blue tailed damselfly

An immature blue tailed female damselfly

A large Mullein Moth

Two bugs mating (needs IDing)

More flowers on the canal bank

The canal on the left and the River Neath on the right

The sun started setting

Swallows on a cable

A cute duck on the canal bank

Day 5 - 30 Days Wild - Birds, Butterflies & Bunnies

*Today's random act of wildness - Birds, Butterflies & Bunnies*

Day 5 of #30DaysWild and another scorching day in South Wales with temperatures reaching 20°C.

We (Dan and I) decided we didn't want to travel far so we visited The Quays, Briton Ferry, Neath Port Talbot. It'a an interesting place on the mouth of the River Neath where it enters Swansea Bay. There are lots of industrial buildings there, but also a sand dune system called 'Baglan Burrows' - it's a real shame that this is not a SSSI like Crymlyn Burrows which is just across the river as we saw lots of wildlife in the few hours we were there.

I read on Facebook a few weeks ago a short eared owl was spotted here, so that was our aim to look out for that. Unfortunately we didn't get to see the owl, but we saw lots of other birds & bugs instead...

Here's Wildling enjoying the view of the docks and the river Neath


BIRDS...

I am not sure if this is a linnet or a twite? If anyone knows can you help me out

Female Stonechat

Male Stonechat

Goldfinch

Male Stonechat

Female Linnet

Male Linnet

Oystercatchers nesting in industrial water pipes

Other birds we saw but didn't get pics are heron, blackbird, sparrow, blue tit, song thrush, gulls, starlings, jackdaws, carrion crow, meadow pipit, swallow and a very surprising lapwing.

BUTTERFLIES...

What a find - a Mother Shipton moth - The moth is named after Old Mother Shipton, a 16th century Yorkshire witch. 
Thanks to Stuart Pike for his help in identify it - check out his #30DaysWild blog here

Common Blue

Painted Lady

Small Blue

Common Blue 

Common Blue female butterfly

Small white moth

Lackey moth caterpillars (lots of them!)

BUNNIES!

Bunnies (Lots!)

Even more bunnies!

My partner in crime Dan ❤ - who is also doing #30DaysWild through his Flickr account
Check it out here!

Day 4 - 30 Days Wild - Garden BioBlitz

*Today's random act of wildness - Garden BioBlitz*

It's already day 4 of #30DaysWild and it is also the 1st day of Wales's Biodiversity Week, so I decided to do my own mini BioBlitz in the garden :)

A very hot day in sunny South Wales and this is what I discovered...

First stop a quick check in the insect hotel, Wildling couldn't find much, apart from some spider webs and the odd woodlouse.

Lots of spider webs among the bamboos, but unfortunately not much more activity

Over to some of my pots and found these guys having fun and destroying my lilies in the meantime - they called Scarlet Lily Beetle notorious at destroy prize lilies!

Closeup of the Scarlet Lily Beetle - what a beautiful red colour on such a killing machine!

The Scarlet Beetles wasn't the only ones having fun...check out these Shield Bugs

Common Red Soldier Beetle - Thanks to @ParksSheffield on Twitter for your help :)  

Vine Weevel - Thanks to @ParksSheffield & @vickybanham on Twitter for your help :)

If you have arachnophobia don't come to my garden! My garden is full of spiders, and a lot of them are carrying egg sacks at the moment...so I am expecting many more eight legged friends in the future. Here are four I found...

Garden Spider having it's dinner

Nursery Web Spider with egg sack

Grass Spider

House spider in it's web

I was a bit disappointed I didn't see many butterflies or moths, but here are there other critters I found...

Bee on love-in-the-mist flower

Mullein Moth Caterpillar

Tiny grasshopper

Pretty snail

Jewel looking fly

I had to include this lovely pic of my irises in bloom

Hope you enjoyed my little garden BioBlitz - hopefully when I have more flowers in bloom the butterflies will arrive x