Masses of eggs.

I've never come across these before. They are egg masses laid by a water snail, Lymnaea stagnalis, sometimes known as the the great pond snail. My garden pond is full of these snails this year and there are large quantities of the egg masses laid on leaves which have fallen in the water.

When out of the water the egg masses look like transparent jellies, up to about an inch long.

There can be up to 120 eggs in each mass! So plenty of snails next year.

Garden wildlife

After my walk on Chantry Hill I was relaxing in the evening in my garden when I noticed a little visitor on one of my birdfeeders.

It looks like it was a yellow necked mouse. It was bigger than the usual wood mice that we see. It enjoyed a good meal of sunflower seeds.

A walk on Chantry Hill

A sunny day on Monday, so a walk on the downs. There was plenty to see. A fox carrying a mouthful of freshly caught prey; ravens, kestrel and buzzards; yellowhammers and tree pipits; grey partridges running; skylarks singing.  The grass was full of violets and cowslips. The blackthorn was in full flower. I met two lizards, running across my foot! So much to see, it's a place I'll be going again.

Cup fungus

I found this strange rubbery cup fungus in one of my gravel patches today.


I haven't been able to identify it but it looks similar to peziza types.

Any suggestions are welcome.

First butterflies in the garden

Yesterday was sunny and there were several brimstones passing through the garden.



Today I went out to see the heather buzzing merrily with bees and found my first comma of the year trying it out too.

Runner-up again!

I entered a photo competition in August organised by the Freshwater Habitats Trust. They wanted pictures for their 2015 calendar. I didn't win one of the three major prizes, but my entry was selected as the September page of the calendar and I received a runner-up prize of a mug picturing a very handsome toad!

My picture of a swimming grass snake has already appeared here on this blog. Their caption in the calendar reads "Even ponds full of alien invasive plants and algae can provide a habitat for priority species like the grass snake." Is that praise for my garden pond or are they telling me to clean it up?

Autumn in the birches

There are lots of birch trees in my local patch so my latest finds are not really surprising.

The birch polypore is a fairly large fungus that appears in autumn and can last for over a year. This is a fresh one which appeared this month. The tree is dead and a favourite haunt of greater spotted woodpeckers. (As seen here)

The fungus is said to have many medicinal properties but is unpalatable for eating. A piece of this fungus was carried by "Ötzi the Iceman" – the 5,000 year old mummy found in the Tyrol.






Another unsurprising find was this little shieldbug.





It's the birch shieldbug, Elasmostethus interstinctus. This one was probably looking for a place to hibernate today. They overwinter as adults and emerge to mate and lay eggs in the spring.