It's that time of year: whenever you go into the garden, particularly in good weather, you seem to see something new. The fine weather over the past week brought a number of 'firsts' for the year.
Large red damselfly.
Among the insects seen in the garden for the first time this year were a large red damselfly (
Pyrrhosoma nymphula) and (just this evening) an unidentified blue damselfly; a new and very pretty little hoverfly,
Leucozona lucorum; and a green-viened white butterfly (
Artogeia rapae).
Among the more unusual things I saw this week was a frog catching and eating a large insect which looked to me very much like a wasp. The frog had quite a bit of trouble with it; letting it go once before seizing again and gulping it down! I saw the lone surviving goldfish again, but it was floating and being devoured by a swarm (if that's the right collective noun) of tadpoles. I don't think that they were responsible for its death, but following some advice once given to me I have been feeding the tadpoles this year with just a little cat food. I'm doing this because I noticed that even towards the end of last year there were a lot of small tadpoles still in the pond. Given its relatively immature state, I am a little concerned that there was not enough natural food for them to develop normally. The small amounts of food I put in are certainly consumed very quickly by them.
