The garden is full of primroses, birds, bees and a fair sprinkling of butterflies, with the bank in the copse coming out of its winter drab and turning green with fresh nettles.
Our buzzards are well set up in the willow tree about 200 feet from where I’m sitting in the conservatory, unfortunately the nest is on the far side of tree trunk so not too much to see but I’m sure we will hear plenty from the youngsters if they are successful in raising a brood.
We are seeing far fewer Redpolls in recent days although the Siskins are still eating us out of house and home!
When I was doing a bit of pond watching, I noticed some of the freshwater shrimps had an orange/red mark, some with a larger mark than others, and when I looked this up I found it I was the larvae of a spiny-headed worm. Their life cycle needs to be completed in the intestines of a bird or fish and by making the shrimp more visible it increases the chance of being eaten and so getting in a position to fully develop to an adult. Apparently some shrimps can host up to 1000 tiny larvae in their gut. After they are infected, instead of keeping out of sight in the depths of the pond, the shrimps come near to the surface on floating plants so exposing themselves to predators. This is an amazing example of a parasite changing the behaviour of its host to suit its own ends.
As we sat in the garden with a cup of tea on Saturday, I heard the local jay and the blackbirds getting very het up about something, and, looking through binoculars, spotted a Tawny owl pressed up against the trunk of an alder tree. The poor creature was being shouted at, at close quarters, by our ‘band of enforcers’. Mike walked down and took this lovely photo.
From The Window 