going amphibious, plus a garden tick and two legless lizards

Our pond is now littered with Toadspawn, and with Toads mating in it still there's likely to be even more. However there is only one little dollop of Frogspawn left. The Smooth Newts snack on it like there's no tomorrow. They only leave Toadspawn alone because, like their parents, toadspawn and the tadpoles that come from it secrete a poison that makes them taste disgusting to even the hungriest newt. 

don't eat this stuff

the Eggs of a Snail, probably a Ramshorn. I was hoping to find Newt eggs under some of the water-lily leaves but no joy.
 

However, the highlight was found under some tiles Dad had the hindsight to put by the pond several years ago. If you are lucky you may well find some cold-blooded creature trying to warm itself up, as these act like a microwave for the sunlight. Today was no exception, with two Slow Worms basking under them in all their glory. One was skittish enough to move away quickly, but the other was quite happy to sit there and be photographed for a while...

Slow Worm

Legless Lizard



Lazy Bastard

 And what about birds, I hear you ask? Well, I got a garden tick today, a Mediterranean Gull circled over the house a few times, calling. A few Meadow Pipits were also heading north. And as a final note to end this post, I saw two Small Tortoiseshells. My first spring butterflies of the year!

spring's beginnings

spring is well and truly on the way now.

following on from the Bar-tailed Godwits moving over the house for several days, on 27 February, at about midnight, I heard a flock of Brent Geese move over. Another pretty impressive garden tick, and definitely migrating birds, although they tend to move along the sea.

Along with that, Common Frogs, Common Toads and Smooth Newts are out in force in the pond in our back garden. Daffodils have sprung up everywhere the past fortnight or so, and other flowers have included Violets along the end of our road. In town, birdsong is everywhere, and Herring Gulls are displaying on many of the rooftops.

On 5 March I went to Pett Pools with a friend, although due to their mobility issues it was mostly car-birding for us. We got great views of Turnstone(some feeding within 10 feet of the car), Snipe, Tufted Duck, Wigeon, Teal, Curlew, Lapwing, Dunlin, Redshank and Shoveler on the roadside pools, and offshore were several hundred Great Crested Grebes, and 7 Common Scoter flew east then west again. Driving back to Seaford, we got a truly brilliant view of a Sparrowhawk, as it zipped accross the road in pursuit of a clearly injured Song Thrush, that had seconds previously half-ran falf-flew in front of our car in a desperate bid to escape. Sadly for the thrush to no avail, we watched the sprawk lift off from the roadside with the bird's limp body clasped in it's talons.

the following day I took a walk over the downs to Denton. The highlights were a Merlin, giving as good as it got with a far larger accompanying Buzzard, and a Grey Partridge, flushed from some set-aside on one of the smaller and more unobtrusive paths I explored. Along this path I also found the breast feathers of another Grey Partridge, taken by some predator. Maybe a Fox, or a Peregrine, or perhaps even the Merlin.

However, despite the wonderful weather, migrants have been hard to come by. But Sussex recorded it's first Wheatear and Little Ringed Plover of the spring today, so maybe, if I pray hard enough, this weekend will deliver the goods?

sorry for the lack of photos today, but my Dad nicked my camera to hopefully go photograph STELLER'S EIDER in Estonia over the past few days. But I'll leave you with an old image, one of the toads in our garden pond last March.

aside from my parents, the wartiest inhabitant of our property 

adios!

photos from recently

Robin seen in my back garden-27/3/10

This rather curious Goldfinch was in the garden on the same date

while there are also now a good number of Toads in the pond, Dad introduced* them back into the pond about seven years ago, and since then they have spread into much of the surrounding area

* They are not introduced in the same way as pheasant/little owl or other such wildlife, rather we have just established a small, self-sustaining population of them, where they would most likely have been anyway before a town was built here, and hopefully they will continue to do well, since (when we first put toadspawn in the pond) they were quite a rare sight locally, although they may be recovering now, I'm not sure. They are, as far as I'm aware, the only population of Toads in Seaford, with the nearest presumably being in the river valleys or the pond on Seaford Head.

a close up of one of the toads firey, umber-coloured eyes.

One of the Stonechats I saw on 27 March on Camp Hill

I also found this eggshell at the foot of Camp Hill. I'm not sure what bird layed it, is anyone out there good at ID'ing eggs? It was in the same area as the Stonehchats, though since both male and female were out in the open, displaying, singing and mobile I very much doubt they have made a nest yet. However, it was about the size of egg a Stonechat-sezed bird would make. Does anyone have any ideas?

Finally, I have no idea what this beetle is, but I'm probably just a magpie who is drawn to anything shiny and metallic!