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The first day searching the garden for what might lurk there i didn't know where to start so i just took my camera and took pictures of everything! It was cold, wet and the plants were quite overgrown and dying off at this point which the animals seemed to like as nearly everywhere i looked there was a bug looking back at me hiding from the rain...well, the snails enjoyed it. I also got a lot of questions off my dad who was possibly fearing for his garden for some unknown reason.

Day One

7th Oct 2013

Yellow dung fly
Black garden ant
Mayfly It was dead without any wings:/
(Long jawed orb weaver) I'm not sure what this spider is, it looks like a regular orb weaver but has longer legs stretched forward which fits the description of the long jawed orb weaver; it could also be a money spider or lesser garden spider according to the descriptions on the site i have linked -->
(Garden spider) Again i'm not sure what type this is so i have hazarded a guess at a garden spider or common orb weaver.
(Common orb weaver) I think this may be a male common orb weaver as it has darker legs than the others i've seen and there are a few of these i've spotted on webs with a paler similar spider (this could be where the male moves onto her web in the mating season).
(Common orb weaver)
Common orb weaver I think this is another male as there is a paler similar spider in the background
(Common orb weaver)
(House spider) If you can see there are some legs poking out behind the wheel as he ran away from me but he looked like a house spider.
Harvestman I'm not sure of the exact species
Harvestmen and a garden snail Again i'm not sure of the two species but they are different again from the harvestman before
Harvestmen A close up of the first image
Ladybird (7spot)
(Long jawed orb weaver) Again this look to have a longer abdomen and out streched legs
(Common orb weaver)
Some of the garden waste that the creature in the bin may have crawled off
(Common soldier or Cardinal beetle)
Ear wig This one scared me!
Green peach aphids Female colony, the ones with wings commonly seen are males and females which go to mate with females or deposit their eggs to a different area.
Green peach aphids
Green peach aphid
(Chalcid wasp) I only saw this for a short time and thought it could be a winged black ant but it's was quite small and irredescent; it looks like it could be a species of parasitic Chalcid wasp.
(Chalcid wasp) Close up view
Garden snail The clumsy snail has broken his shell at some point but luckily survived as exposure of their insides to the air normally dries them out; there was a hardened layer formed underneath
White lipped snails
(Garden snail) Could be a baby garden snail or white lipped snail
(Garden snail) Little baby garden snail look at his little face!
(Rounded or strawberry snail)
(Garden snail) Another little baby!
Garden snail
(Common orb weaver)
(Common orb weaver)
(Common orb weaver) Again you can see a darker male hanging around underneath a leaf
(Common orb weaver)
(Common orb weaver)

10th Oct 13

To my horror this morning dad had deforested the garden! All the plants were cut down, the floor was swept and the fountain and ornaments had gone. It was the insect version of the apocalypse! I found two snail survivors in the garden but nothing else; every other creature left i found in the garden bin a bit lost.

(Black slug) The black slug can come in many different colour variations such as this red one, brown and pale yellow
(Garden snail or White lipped snail) Another little baby snail! next to an unfortunately squished earwig (it wasn't me by the way)
Blunt-tailed snake millipede
The bin full of the deforested garden!
Garden and White lipped snails
(Common orb weaver)
Cabbage moth chrysalis I found this chrysalis half buried in the plant pot so i pulled it out thinking it had fallen in there from the plants dad took out.
Cabbage moth chrysalis Later i researched it and think it was a cabbage moth chrysalis, he has since become affectionately known as Jeremy
Garden snail
Garden snail
White lipped snail

22nd Oct 13

Its been twelve days since my project seemed demolished and there was still not many bugs about apart from a few slugs and snails; there wasn't even the last few survivors in the bin any more but maybe they were covered up by the rest of the garden filling the bin.

Garden snail
Garden snail
(Common garden slug) This was quite a small slug only a few cm long which fits the common garden slug or the Grey field slugs description
(Garden or White lipped snail) Another baby snail
Garden snail
(Ichneumon wasp) Its hard to see from my picture the exact appearance of this wasp but the most similar image i could find was of a type of Ichneumon wasp although the exact species was not named
(Ichneumon wasp) Close up (it looks a different colour because of the flash but look at that stinger! scary)
White lipped snail
I'm not sure what these are at all, they could be a cocoon of some kind as it looks like there's something inside the one on the left; or they could just be some dirt on the bin...
Two more and the one on the right looks like it's been opened and maybe something crawled out? hmm
(Garden snail) More babies!
The bin is now full to bursting with the last remnants of the garden and i'm trying to think of how i can rescue some bugs without the neighbors or dad seeing me (it didn't happen :s)

25th Oct 13

I wasn't outside to take pictures but going into the shed i found this little caterpillar on top of the dryer which must have fallen off one of the ornaments dad put away. I had a look at caterpillar types and found it was a cabbage moth and is probably what the chrysalis was; he should hatch in January to March. The caterpillars feed from cabbage or other plants in that family so i found a plant and it wriggled away.

http://ukmoths.org.uk/show.php?id=4434

Cabbage moth caterpillar
Cabbage moth caterpillar
Cabbage moth caterpillar

27th Oct 13

Not much got done today, i tried to start filming the birds and in the pond with my phone camera in a jar to protect it from the rain but what was filmed was very bad quality and the glass was too murky. Even though it has never done this before, my phone then decided that every 5 seconds it would pixelate the footage so even if anything did go past the camera i could'nt see it!? It did actually have a clearer image in the pond but it was too dark with too many weeds to catch anything. Next time i'm using a proper camera.

To the left is the video of the pond if you really, really want to see it just to prove it worked (in a way) but if you have better things to do go and do that! quick.

1st Nov 13

No pictures again! I tried to film the birds at the bird table with my dodgy phone again but nothing worked. The only thing i saw in the garden was a little bird i think was a wren but it was too quick for me to take a photo.

10th Nov 13

Again i haven't seen a lot, there were two snails in the garden bin, and i tried to film both the pond and bird table again with nothing interesting happening. The last thing i did was make a tulgren funnel from a plastic bottle; i dug some soil from a plant pot, put it in the funnel and rested a lamp on top to try and get anything to dig its way out of the bottom from the heat and light. After a few hours i checked the bottle and nothing was there so i poured it back where i found it.

11th Nov 13

Today i tried filming the bird table again and when i turned it off a robin and sparrow decided to appear. Then while i was inside i saw a male blackbird on the lawn and managed to film him this time (sorry about the wobbliness), then again i turned the camera off just as he finally caught a worm and ate it after tapping his feet on the ground.

I didn't look around the garden to take pictures of bugs but i did find a harvestman sat on the rabbit hutch and a common orb weaver at the window.

My tulgren funnel 10th Nov 13
Harvestman 11th Nov 13
(Common orb weaver) 11th Nov 13
(Common orb weaver) 11th Nov 13
Blackbird 11th Nov 13

8th Dec 13

I started making a bug hotel out of materials from the shed as i realised i hadn't made one yet! It may be too late for anything much to be finding and using it because of the cold weather and the fact there isnt a lot of wildlife since the garden was chopped down. This will only be a temporary house as i haven't yet researched what else could be used and made to make more spaces for different kinds of bugs. I also need to dig around a bit more for more materials. There is currently some bricks raising the house off the ground and a wood plank roof to keep away most of the dampness, a few tubes that will be stuffed with straw and a block of wood with holes 'drilled' into it. If you decide to make holes in a wood block too then you should check you have a drill that works first; otherwise like me you will resort to using a screwdriver and hammer, then another screwdriver to dig out the first one that got stuck...

First attempt at a bug house I made this very quickly from bits of wood and brick waste in the garden as i haven't made one yet and its already winter. Its probably too late now for anything to be moving in and it's not very secure or weather proof so this is definitely a temporary one until i find some better materials!
Materials I cut up some cardboard tubes and secures them with string into a bundle. I will fill these with straw to hopefully provide a warm and safe place to hide.
More tubes...
More materials Some rolled up magazines tied with string; i was told ages ago that if you roll up newspaper and slot it in the hedge it provides somewhere for ladybirds to gather and hibernate in. We will see!
I tried making some little holes for species such as a solitary bee to nest in but i don't think they will be big enough so hopefully something else will find them useful like a woodlouse.
Here they are in the hedge, i think my neighbors think i'm going insane at this point.

23rd Jan 14

For the past few weeks iv'e been mainly researching and haven't taken taken any pictures or found much when i searched the garden but today i saw a blue tit in the tree so i filmed it and took a few photos.

1/3

29th Jan 14

I searched the garden and took a few photos, i didn't find many creatures again but i found most of them in the garden bin which must have crawled from the leaves dad put in there. In the next few weeks i think a lot more creatures will be in the garden as it gets to spring time.

Woodlouse and some little babies too!
(Netted slug)
Some dry leaves in the bin dad has been tidying up, these would be good to use in the bug house.
(Cellar or strawberry snails) This is an egg box to be left outside for bugs to keep warm in i had completely forgotten about weeks ago. It had fallen down beside a bush and had a few snails inside

25th Jan 14

On the 23rd i spotted something go under the surface of the pond which i thought was a frog so i set up my camera by the pond where i saw it to see if it would come out while i was gone. Two frogs appeared, one swam over to the rock and another came out from behind it.

14th Feb 14

I tried filming the pond again a few days ago but nothing appeared apart from the goldfish which iv'e never actually seen since we got it last year :o. I came back later on and spotted a pair of frogs; the males grasp the female under her front legs and stay attached until she lays her eggs which he then fertilises. This is known as amplexus.

The frogs lay their eggs in our pond every year as they return to the pond they were born in to reproduce.

There was no frog spawn or other pairs so it could be a few days before frogspawn starts appearing.

Pair of common frogs 16th Mar

Male common frog 17th Mar

Pair of common frogs 16th Mar

1/5

16th Mar 14

I bought a bird box on ebay a feww weeks ago so mum and dad hung it up for me today as i didn't know where i could put it. They used string to tie it to the swing chair, it is between 1.5-5m from the ground, and placed where a predator such as a cat can't climb up or stand above the box. The tree is in front of it to hopefully provide some cover though there aren't any leaves on it yet so the space is a bit open so may not be suitable for birds to nest here.

The next day on the 15th i saw about 4 or 5 house sparrows perching on the swing chair as if they were checking it out.

The bird box

17th Feb 14

We had a wasp buzzingaround in the house last night so i caught it in a glass this morning as it was just walking around quite disorientated on the windowsil. It acted strangely and was curling up and rolling around so i don't know if something was wrong with or if it was dying, when i write some general information on certain species i will research it. I also saw some more frogs in the pond, they didn't seem afraid of me this time they just sat there posing for me.

Common wasp
Common wasp
Common frog
Common frog
Common frog

24th Feb 14

I set up my camera on the wall instead and aimed it at the bench where i left some bird seed out, the first time i think a dunnock and then a great tit come into view as the dunnock seems to have a greyer colouring and less speckles than a house sparrow and the great tit had a black bib unlike the blue tit. I moved the camera into the conservatory instead because i was paranoid my sister would come out and tell me off for leaving her camera outside (as she does) and this time saw some male and female house sparrows and i think the dunnock appears again near the end.

28th Feb 14

I filmed a lot today and tried to get close ups of the birds more as it was hard to tell what they were from a distnce amd it looks better, mainly house sparrows were filmed but the dunnock and blackbird also made an appearance.

(Dunnock) and male house sparrow

Male house sparrow

Female house sparrow

(Dunnock) and male house sparrow

1/4

21st Mar 14

I made some more tulgren funnels out of bigger bottles and took four samples from different areas of the garden. Because my lamp didn't work last time as it did'nt give off much heat i used a hairdryer to heat up the surface and hopefully drive the creatures down to burrow out into the base; the surface dried out but i didn't have much time to carry on for a longer time. So instead i tipped each one out at a time into a tray and dug through it to find the bugs. I found quite a lot of little white worms which i tried to find out what they are; they could be either white worms or baby earth worms. The larger red one i found could also be a baby earthworm.

I also saw a centipede which the only name i could find for a species would be the western yellow centipede and a millipede i had seen earlier in the year i researched to be a blunt-tailed snake millipede

Later on i took some pictures around the garden of the developing frogspawn and the flowering cherry tree which was atracting some bees.

17th Mar 14

There's frog spawn in the pond today, i can see about 3 pairs and one i think were in the process of laying their eggs as they were smaller than the rest of the eggs and a lot were white. You can see it in the bottom of one of the photos. I filmed them as it was quite interesting to see the males on their own croaking and chasing after each other, there was one male in particular that chased every frog that appeared and was bumping them out the way like a dogem :P

I was beginning to think earlier on that they could be marsh frogs instead as they were a more green colour and didn't have the dark mask behind the eyes but when i researched i found out that the males turn this colour for breeding; the females i saw with the males were a brownish colour and did have the mask.

Tulgren funnel
Tulgren funnels




Soil samples
Using a hair dryer to heat up the top of the soil samples, it didn't work...well it did dry them out but nothing burrowed to the bottom
Buff-tailed bumble bee
Buff-tailed bumble bee
Frog spawn
Frog spawn
(Baby earth worm) I don't know what this was but it was a little white worm, there was quite a few of these in each sample
Another white worm and a millipede curled up at the top
Yet another white worm and a larger red one
Earth worm
Yellow western centipede I think this was a centipede as it had a different appearance to the millipede and moved differently
Buff-tail bumble bee
Buff- tail bumble bee
Blunt-tailed snake millipede I think this is the same type of millipede i saw earlier on in the garden bin as it had dark dots on the side of each segment and was the same size and shape
Blunt-tailed snake millipede

24th Mar 14

(Tree bumble bee) This bee was a different species to the buff-tailed bumble bee a few days ago; this one had a black abdomen with no yellow stripe and a red thorax, this image looks very similar to that of the tree bumble bee
(Tree bumble bee)
(Tree bumble bee)
(Tree bumble bee)
(Tree bumble bee)
Frog spawn
(Strawberry snail or rounded snail)

While i was outside i heard more buzzing around the cherry tree and saw a different kind of bumble bee. This one had a red thorax instead and a black abdomen with a buff tail which fitted the description of the tree bumble bee i researched. I didn't see much else apart from the little snail that had come out in the rain.

30th Mar 14

Today was my last day of filming and taking pictures, the rest of the time until the end of my project will be putting this website together and researching what i have found to write in certain species information on this site.

The cherry trees flowers had come out so there was loads of buzzing as bees and flies were visiting it, i also decided to take apart my new bug house which i hadn't written about making it at the start of January. There was a few things that had moved in which was more than i was expecting like spiders, earwigs and harvestmen. Lastly i fished in the pond to see if i could find anything more than the one freshwater woodlouse i managed to catch a few months ago. The pictures of the bug house and a few videos are below,

The cherry tree
Buff-tailed bumble bee
Buff-tailed bumble bee
(Red-tailed bumble bee)
Buff-tail bumble bee
Buff-tailed bumble bee On the magnolia tree
Fly This picture isn't very clear so it's harder to tell what this fly could be but the wings appear overlapped so i don't think it is a house fly...that only leaves a few thousand other species it could be!
Fly This could be a house fly
Fly This looks like another house fly
Honey bee There was a drone fly hovering about that i thought was a honey bee at first but this one looks more like a honey bee to me as the abdomen and antenna appear longer
Honey bee Again this one looks more like a honey bee than the drone fly, also you can see what looks like pollen sacs on the legs which the fly wouldn't have
Drone fly The eyes are a lot larger than they would be on a honey bee
Drone fly
Drone fly
Drone fly
Drone fly
Honey bee You can slightly see the pollen sacs again and it's flight was more 'bee like' than the drone flies hovering
Green bottles
Male house sparrow
Male house sparrow
Male house sparrow
(Baby garden snail)
Developing frog spawn
Frog spawn
May fly
Freshwater louse one of the many reasons i don't dip my feet in the pond anymore!
Spider I'm not sure what species this is, it could be a woodlouse spider as it was underneath the rabbit run but the jaws don't look big enough
Harvestman A baby one!
7 spot ladybird
7 spot ladybird
Jackdaw
Freshwater louse
Freshwater louse
Common woodlouse

The new bug house This was made from a plastic mesh crate, a plastic bag ties around the sides for waterproofing and some roof felt on a board for a roof. This would help to keep it warm and dry. There was wood blocks for something to bore into or hide between, plant pots which should have had dry leaves or straw in (i never got around to it) and cardboard tubes with straw or twigs in for insulation and other hiding places.

Mites There was little brown mites crawling all over the roof felt and wood when i started moving it around, my camera didn't pick them up very well because they're so tiny
Roof
Mites
(Cardinal beetle)
Cardboard tube and straw
(Fly/mite)
(Fly/ mite)
(Common orb weaver) Baby spider!
(Common orb weaver) Another baby spider!
(Money spider) I couldn't find a common name for a species and they look very alike, there are a few on this site it could be -(http://www.naturespot.org.uk/taxonomy/term/20827) It is in the family Linyphiidae also known as money spiders
(Money spider)
(Strawberry snail) (Garlic snail or cellar snail)
Earwig
Harvestman Another baby!
Common woodlice
(Netted slugs) Slugs under the board the bug house rested on
Slugs The largest one at the bottom is a black slug and the rest may be garden slugs
Freshwater woodlice
(A type of rove beetle) I found this wriggling around on the pond surface so i fished him out, he was curling up his abdomen as if it was drying itself off
I left this plant pot and slate out as a more permanent home for the bugs now the bug house has gone
White lipped snail
(Strawberry snail/ cellar snail) (Garlic snail) They all look the same in the book i'm using to identify them! The snails seem to enjoy the egg boxes although i'm not sure that's a good thing as they have been eating them and pooping out paper..