Seems like a good year for the Holly Blue 😀

The Pollination of the Cherry Blossom!🌸 🐝 = 🍒

Holly Blue!

Actually a Bank Vole (I initially thought it might have been a young rat! Hence Fawlty Towers reference.) 😀

Google lens suggests “Bank Vole (Myodes glareolus).” 😀

Seen in the bushes of a local car-park today I initially thought this was some kind of vole but I am reliably informed that it is actually a Filigree Siberian Hamster. 🐹

Foxy arrived late for her breakfast biscuit.
Luckily the hedgehogs have missed one!

A pair of Jays at Hollins Hall, Baildon, today. They spend a lot of time rooting about in the lawns where they are presumably finding insects of some kind.
#Garrulus glandarius #VC64

The garden fox seems to be a little bit disconcerted by all the huffing noises made by of a pair of hedgehogs!
🦊 🦔 🦔

A pair of Long-tailed Tit (Aegithalos caudatus), nesting at Hollins Hall, Baildon, are making good use of someone’s car aerial today 😂

Unexpected garden visitor!
(We are nowhere near any water).

Exotic waterbirds in Otley today. Lonely goose. Lone Black Swan, Mandarin drake and a pair of Goosander.
The Mute Swans are currently nesting further upstream preparing for this year’s cygnet shenanigans!

Ben Rhydding Gravel Pits, Wharfedale, in today’s warm sunshine.
This must be National Orange Tip day as the males all seemed to have emerged at once!
Goldfinch, Chiffchaff and Little Egret photographed but Kingfisher and Sand Martins were also present.
The Chiffchaff seems to have a sticky beak!

Orange Tip! 😀

The early morning fox knows where the biscuit is hidden 🦊 🍪

Busy building a nest!
#Sittidae #VC64

The garden birds seem to be getting smaller!

Ben Rhydding Gravel Pits in Wharfedale today. Still no Sand Martins but plenty of Chiffchaffs. This Comma butterfly was nectaring on Lesser Celandines.
A superb male Brimstone also made an appearance but wouldn’t settle.
#VC64

In the garden today one Nuthatch is keeping guard whilst its mate is busy trying to modify the inside of the entrance hole!
The nest box is affixed to the trunk of a Wych Elm that supports a colony of White-letter Hairstreak butterflies. The nuthatches have nested here since 2021.
#Sittidae #VC64

I watched a female Greenfinch collect nesting material before disappearing into this evergreen, ornamental shrub.
I waited for it to emerge again but the male popped out instead!
He looks like he is trying to assess whether I am a danger or not.

#Chloris chloris #VC64

The Nuthatches are back! 😀
We were beginning to think the worst, with no sightings in the garden since last summer, but today a pair are very busy taking nesting material into the box.
Were they waiting for the Spring Equinox, the new moon or just some sunshine?
#Sittidae #VC64

When the humans haven’t put your supper out yet!

The Satellite (Eupsilia transversa) attracted to a window at Hollins Hall, Baildon, VC64
Not pristine at this time of year because the adults emerge in the autumn.

Just two swans on the river at Otley today.

Two examples of Oak Beauty attracted to the windows of Hollins Hall, Baildon, last night. 😀
#VC64

One of the gulls on the church roof today was 251J making its first appearance for 19 months!

#GullOfTheDay #GullsOfOtley #Chroicocephalus #ridibundus
#NWBHGs

You can always tell when the church has got the central heating on!

#Chroicocephalus #ridibundus
#NWBHGs #GullsOfOtley

Black-headed Gull 237H looking smart in Otley today getting ready for its migration back home to Norway 🇳🇴

#Chroicocephalus #ridibundus
#NWBHGs #GullOfTheDay #GullsOfOtley

Something to look forward to! 😀
🌸 🌸 🌺
#Dahlia #Juliet #EdgeOfJoy

It was deemed necessary to remove an old Oak tree to make room for a temporary pedestrian bridge whilst repairs of the existing bridge took place.