day 10 #30DaysWild - the hare and the fox

This morning we had a hare right outside our house, we have seen them on the common before, but never on our track. By the time I had got my camera the hare had moved on slightly out of view from our front door, but still on the track, so I rushed up to my workroom and managed to get these photos through the window glass!

Later on in the morning we were on our drive and the hare pelted past our gateway being hotly pursued by a young fox - far too quick for any chance of a photo. We didn't see any sign of either animal for the rest of the time we were outside, so unfortunately we do not know the outcome.

 my instagram post today was a video of bird song, going on around us as we sat out drinking am afternoon cup of tea

Now our attention is focused on the National Moth Night tonight, the trap is being sorted by Mr S as I type, we have a new location for tonight's trapping session providing a different habitat to usual, in a garden with plenty of mature shrubs surrounded by many tall trees, mainly coniferous, which will hopefully mean several new moths in the morning

Day 5 - #30daysWild - borage, cloudless sky and nature walk around our local common

After a chilly start the sun soon broke through and then we were in cloudless Staffordshire for the rest of the day!

So a day of more gardening with the the company of a fearless robin, who kept appearing near to where I chose to dig! could this be the year I finally get a robin to feed from my hand? any tips on how I go about this would be very welcome!
One of my tasks in the garden was to thin out the borage, which sort of fitted into one of the random wild acts on the 30daysWild App, so today I selected 'sow borage for bees' and adapted it to thinned out borage for bees. I sowed my borage seeds during last years 30 Days Wild and we enjoyed a mass of them in late summer, which then self seeded for this year, so reluctantly today I pulled up several seedlings from the bed, but have still left at least 20 borage plants growing so again I am looking forward to a mass of blue flowers along with the bees and the holly blue butterfly that enjoyed them last year.

After an hour or so of gardening we decided to go for a walk around our neighbouring common, we kept an eye out for small pearl bordered fritillary butterflies, but alas there were none, we haven't seen any for a few years now, but I remain hopeful that they are still here it's just that we haven't spotted them!
We did however see our first Painted Lady of the year which just happened to fly onto the only guelder rose on the common as I was photographing the flowers.

We also spotted this stunning broad bodied chaser dragonfly

a Mother Shipton moth

and lots of these micro moths glyphipterix thrasonella

but the star of the day had to be the fantastic show of ragged robin, probably the best I have ever seen on the common

When we returned home my attention once more was focused on our friendly robin, I became a human bird table for an hour, sitting still on our lawn for an hour arms held out with two palms full of seed. Needless to say I had no takers but it was very relaxing!

Day 3 of #30DaysWild

A sad day today, our lovely lane lined with cow parsley is no more, the grass cutters were down this morning and this

has now become this!

so pointless when it is a single track lane with no junctions - last night when we walked along the lane the cow parsley was covered in diamondback moths, beetles and flies, I wasn't able to walk up tonight but I am sure that there will be far less insect life around now!

Anyway today the sun shone so I spent as much time outside as I could, My wild act from chosen from the 30 days Wild App was to 'get crafty in the sunshine' so I sat outside and worked on this,

it is now finished but I can't share the completed piece yet -
I also did some more gardening, and endless job but something I love doing, I bought a new Salvia today which is a great plant for pollinators so that is now planted ... and baby birds were about, 3 young magpies, a young robin. As parent birds are busy feeding so I thought I would give the robins a bit of extra food and put out a plate of meal worms on our bug hotel  from last years '30 days wild' well the robins didn't get a look in as the the jackdaws found it first! this was one of my instagram photos

Day 2 - 30 Days Wild

A beautiful day to be outside today, lovely sunshine but still quite a cool feel in the shade. I spied butterflies fluttering around over the common in front of our house, but I spent most of the day indoors - which included a visit to Gallery at 12 in Eccleshall, I took over 30 of my nature photograph greeting cards to add to the large selection of cards already available from the gallery.

After an incredibly relaxing hour floating around in a pod of salted water this afternoon I finally returned home in time to cook dinner, I spent as much time as I could pottering around the garden while the dinner was cooking, apart from a few bees and the birds I saw nothing to photograph,
To my relief though a wasp ended up in our hall so I was able to carry out another wild act from the 30 days wild app by 'saving a wild life' this was tweeted this evening and then after dinner  and before Springwatch we did get out for a short walk up our lane so I did manage to photograph a few insects - There has been an invasion of diamondback moths from Europe and our lane hasn't escaped them, hundreds of them flying around the cow parsley along our lane - so today's instagram picture was one of these moths.

Diamondback moth

 I also then tweeted a 2-spot ladybird too but I still have an insect to ID, any help on this would be welcome!

The night before

Tomorrow is the 1st June and the first day of 30 Days Wild  for 2016 - I have no special plans for tomorrow, we will just see what comes along!
To help us through the month we have both been sent a pack from the Wildlife Trusts with a wall chart,  cards and stickers!

I have also downloaded the 30 Days Wild app which has some fabulous ideas too!
Last year we took part in the 30 days Wild project and during the month we made a bug hotel which has survived the year, I also made a fairy pot which looks fabulous a year on, I tweeted about something wild every day and posted a photo every day on instagram too, I am planning on tweeting and using instagram with #30DaysWild throughout June this year too, so please keep your eyes out for my posts as @pearlysmith but as far as large projects we have yet to come up with one.
exciting times!
see you tomorrow with day 1 of #30daysWild