Two more photos!
Asian hornet
European hornet
They are welcome to stay, but the shrew wanders quite close to my feet in the evenings ā donāt want to tread on her - and mousey has cats to contend with, if they decide to come indoors, which they donāt at the moment.
Decisions, decisionsā¦!
Am having a problem IDā¦ing these 2 birds. Anyone know what these two might be?
Bird 1 is brown backed, light underside and with a grey shroud around head and neck. Think itās a warbler of some kind. Videoed in May this year.
Bird 2 I think is a siskin, maybe a pine siskin, but canāt find a match on the internet. Videoed in August.
According to the RSPB birds can lose plumage due to stress during the breeding season, including baldness ā but those feathers do grow back
Welcome to baldy-scruffbagsā¦ā¦but this isnāt as bad as some Iāve seen on the internet.
Not sure if this blackbird is male or femaleā¦ā¦possibly a juvenile.
If you like insects, flying insects, then Iām sure youāll be as fascinated (fascinatingly beautiful) as I was on seeing these videos ā a series called bugs in flight, by Ant Labā¦though I donāt think European insects are includedā¦
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Tiger moth.
Jersey Tiger (moth)ā¦ marvellous watching this fluttering aboutā¦
Iāve never seen the transparent winged one before - stunning !
My mum had hummingbird hawk moths in her garden in Stevenage back in the late 80s, it is where I first saw and photographed them (back when prints were still a thing) 
Havenāt seen any so far this year, but then again, I havenāt been trimming the hedges or the virginia creeper, which is where they tend to hang outā¦
Recently found one climbing up the crepi in full sunā¦ presumably hoping to hide behind the shutter aboveā¦ as it was 44c at the timeā¦
all the greenery is on the other side of the house and thatās where I usually spot 'emā¦ in the trumpet vine etcā¦ havenāt seen any there yet this yearā¦ but fingers crossed.
Incidentallyā¦ anyone spotted Stagbeetles???
Only seen just the one, flying-by at sunset, several weeks agoā¦ usually see lots on the walls etc but nuffink.
Is bird 1 a dunnock ?
Same here, evening flight back in July, but none on any of the oak trees or on the ground so far.
The small brown bird, with the blackbird, is a dunnock. Get quite a few of them nowā¦
real dearth of lizards and slugs and snailsā¦
used to have different sorts of lizards, ducking and diving from the walls to the stonesā¦ up the houseā¦ everywhereā¦ now itās just the odd one or twoā¦
Snails are rare but not completely out of the picture.
I saw the first slug (and quite a large one) ā¦ ā¦ the other dayā¦ hadnāt seen any for months and not even seen that one sinceā¦
nature is definitely on a strange planetā¦
I think I answered wrongly here. Yes it looks a bit like a dunnock, but I donāt think it is. If you look at my other video - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CYr37TDBccA - thatās a dunnock. Seems to be different to the one I think is a warblerā¦
Finally found my hummingbird hawkmoth pictures. Itās impossible to get the wings to freeze with the sort of camera I had then, but here is one.
It took about six or seven attempts to get one like this. They flit around so fast !
A different view.
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I used to think there were 4 sizes of hummingbird mothā¦ then discovered that the really tiny one was actually a bee-flyā¦ 
not my video but it does show what we get mixed in with the true hummingbird moths on our valerien flowers et alā¦
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