Conservation.

Bring back the birds.

A garden bustling with bird life will be brought alive by song and flapping wings, and also give us a chance to see wild creatures at close hand. But many of our most familiar visitors are suffering serious decline.

What to look out for.

As well as house sparrows, whose numbers have dropped dramatically, other birds in decline include starlings, dunnocks,song thrushes, mistle thrushes, swifts, house martins, spotted flycatchers, willow warblers, bullfinches, tree sparrows and linnets.

Reasons for their decline.

Cats and non native grey squirrels are to take some  blame for falling populations of these birds, but the main reasons are man made. Patios, decking, drives and the general tidiness of our modern gardens eliminate the seed and insect food of many species. Birds like house sparrows, swifts, house martins and swallows are finding it harder to find nest sites because we are much better at maintaining our houses nowadays, whereas in the past they`d have nested under the eaves. We have also taken out a lot of hedgerows in our inner cities and filled in all of the nooks and crannies on the outside of our houses with p.v.c. Also some modern farming practices, pesticides, the lack of weed seeds and a change to planting times all play their part.

Tips to help.

Leave parts of your garden to go wild.

You don`t have let your garden get hopelessly overgrown, but areas of long grass are a great habitat for insects and nearly all small birds need insects during the breeding season to provide protein for their young.

Plant plenty of native species.

As they will provide seed foods for birds and attract insects. Annual plants that produce seeds in late summer are a good source of food in the autumn and delaying cutting back your perennials until the spring means the seed heads provide winter food. Berry-bearing trees are always good for attracting birds. Varieties of cotoneasters, pyracantha and rowans are popular for redwings, fieldfares and waxwings.

Give the birds a banquet.

With lots of feeders and a variety of food including seeds and energy rich foods like fat balls. Various birds will always come back to your garden so if you put feeders out you must always make sure you keep them topped up. Great tits, blue tits,long tailed tits, chaffinches, goldfinches, robins, blackbirds and starlings. Theses species doing well largely because of their success adopting  to garden feeders.

Provide a home to nest.

Many garden birds share a willingness to use nest boxes. But you can buy boxes that fit under your eaves to attract house- nesting species. Boxes with metal reinforcement around the opening can stop woodpeckers and squirrels from getting in to them as well.

Things to look out for in june.

Bombus pratorum on some bramble.

June is a wonderful month to go for a nice walk with a pair of binoculars to see how many fledgling birds you can spot. Blue tits,great tits,robins,green finches,gold finches and black birds should be able to be seen. I counted four blue tits and five great tit fledglings while i was out walking last week. Make sure that the feeders in your gardens are topped up as the parent and fledgling birds will come to rely on them. The word tit comes from an Icelandic word tittr, Meaning a small bird or just anything small. Make sure that you don`t throw any peanuts on to the floor as the fledglings may choke on them. Nearly all of us will have urban or country red foxes living by us, Whether you live in the town or the country. To find out where the red foxes are, Is to find out where their breeding earth, Then you can enjoy some fantastic viewing. It`s not as hard as you think to find their earth, Small copses or a stand of trees in a park or an tucked away areas of wasteland are good areas to start looking. When you thing their could be red fox earth look for a single hole that is a bit bigger than a rabbits hole and a little bit smaller than a badgers entrance. Because the young cubs are now getting very playful look out for their toys around the earth,These could be bones,feathers,rabbits feet or even whole wings. All of the vegetation will be flattened around the earth as well. One thing that will make you know that its a red fox earth is the strong smell coming from it. This is a good month to look out for meadow brown,speckled wood and common blue butterflies.Birdfoot trefoil,knapweed and ox eye daisies are just a few flowers you might see them on. A walk through any woodland will bring up a male speckled wood, Fluttering in front of you then back down to their sunspot, This will most probably be the second generation this year of the speckled wood butterfly. The meadow brown is Britain's most common butterfly, Whats unusual about the meadow brown is that the female is brighter than the male.(male butterflies are normally brighter than the females).The female lays single eggs on grasses such as cocks foot, The caterpillars can live for up to nine months before they start hatching in the middle of June if the weather is warm enough.

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Banded demoiselle damsefly.

Banded damoseilles can now be seen up and down rivers and brooks, This will also mean that their are caddis and alder fly on the wing as well, As this is one of their main foods. A week fluttering flight,a more delicate build and the fact that a damselfly can hold their wings either vertically over their body like a butterfly or horizontally (a dragon fly only hold their wings horizontally) are the main differences from a damselfly to a dragon fly. Dog roses,campions,honeysuckle,elder flower and ragged robins are just a few plants you may see in flower during June. Particularly elder flower will encourage a whole host of insects to its beautiful flowers, Hover flies, wasps and bees will be drawn to the beautiful white flowers. Also look out for black,orange and brown soldier beetles, They are attracted to the flowers in the search of other insects for them to hunt. Also look out for either the black and yellow Caterpillar of the cinnabar moth or the moth itself depending once again on how warm it has been. The cinnabar moth is easily disturbed so look out for its lovely scarlet wings in flight. Finally a tale of two wonderful insects, Firstly the lesser stag beetle which is smaller than the stag beetle, This is still a wonderful beetle to see though, But neither the male or the female develop the large mandibles that the stag beetle develops(i will be talking about stag beetles next month). Secondly the scorpion fly, This actually related to the mecoptera order, This the same order as lace wings and alder flys. So its not the same as a house fly or a hover fly because they have a different metamorphose stage. I will be talking about metamorphism in a later post. Their name comes from the shape of the males sexual organs, Which are bulbous and resemble the tail part of a scorpion. They are at the tip of his body and are normally curled up over his wings. Scorpion flys are harmless and are mainly found along hedgerows and in gardens. They have long beak-like mouth parts which they use to eat either decaying plant material, or feeding on dead or wounded insects. The males are true gentlemen,offering gifts of saliva or guarding a food item from other males while emitting a pheromone to attract a female and once she is satisfied ,mating commences. Look out for little tadpoles of smooth newts around some ponds where you have seen them spawning in spring, Disturb the weeds around the warm edges of your newt pond and you should uncover Little newts,(their tadpoles are just smaller versions of the adult newts). The fluffy little things sticking out of the side of its head are their gills.