What have you seen

Black swans live in the park in Dawlish, Devon. They’ve been there for as long as I can remember.

There used to be a lovely garden near Helston that was open to public, that had black swans as well. Trevarno, sadly closed a few years ago now.

There’s one of the villages on the North Coast of Norfolk road, between Wells and Sheringham that has some quite unusual water fowl as well usually, on the village pond. Certainly Mandarin Ducks, they have been there years, so must be breeding. Nice to see something a bit exotic.

We haven't heard a cuckoo on our recent travels and we'll be at Ebury in August so will miss out on that too! Sadly no cuckoos at home. 

Heard a number of cuckoo’s in North Norfolk over the weekend and hopefully spot some at Carlton Marshes and Lakenheath in the coming days 

Whilst gardening today we had this beauty land on a trowel. It was obviously tired as it stayed long enough to be photographed, had to turn phone on first, and then lasted another 5 minutes before disappearing into the foliage.

One of the many variants in the Ichneumonid group, wasp like.

Good Photos WN and have seen them here and I was looking at these insects in my book as was looking for something else  very unusual insects.

Plenty of butterflies about today as very warm as well and more garden work done.

Golden Oriole singing again.

We have got  blue tits in one of our bird boxes pleased about that as last year we did not have any.

Sat looking out of the window when I noticed feathers flying, it was a sparrow Hawk eating supper on our wall less than 5/6 yards from where I sat.  Only had my phone to get a quick photo

I think he spotted you too! We have regular visits from one, found some pigeon tail feathers last week so hope that one got away, a blackbird was not so lucky.

Wow, a first for me! Spotted what at first thought was a small kestrel but the flight pattern was wrong. Fast flight close to the ground, rapid wingbeat, very sudden change of direction . Beautifully bird, checked out, Merlin!✔️

A good spot mickysf have had one or two around here in the last few years but not seen any yet this year.

Well we have not had any birds at all on our feeders this week so they have come down do not usually get any during the warmer weather, a lot of activity with some birds sitting on eggs and others busy feeding chicks.

The Golden Oriole was singing a lot today and very close to the house in a nearby large Oak tree but not able to see him.