The undersides of the leaves of the Birch have plenty of larvae of the mildew eating Orange Ladybird (Halyzia 16-guttata ).  It is one of four vegetarian ladybirds in the UK.

There are also quite a few of its pupae.

I love Nasturtiums but they do have the problem that they attract blackfly in enormous quantities. This year has proved no exception in that regard.

I haven't had much time to go wildlife spotting in the garden recently so I whipped around with the camera today to take a couple of shots of garden flowers instead.

One of my favourite perennials that seems to flower all summer long is the Platycodon grandiflorum mariesii or Chinese Balloon Flower. (Contrary to the names given on many websites it is not P. grandiflorus or P. grandiflorume)

To quote from http://www.backyardgardener.com/

"The Chinese Balloon Flower is very closely allied to the Campanulas.  It grows erect and the stems are rigid.  The flowers have five petals and open out rather flat, but when in bud they look like inflated balloons, from whence the common name is derived.  The flowers are both single and double.  They are blue and white in color and sometimes will have blue or white veins which makes them appear as if they streaked.  They begin blooming about the middle of June and last throughout the Summer.  The Chinese Bell Flower or Balloon Flower is known as Platycodon grandiflorume and grows 3 feet tall.  P. g. Mariesii has deep blue, bell-shaped flowers, some of them nearly 3 inches across, but it is more dwarf, only growing about 12 inches high."

Meanwhile, the Lobelias continue to provide some of the best annual colour whatever the weather.  Lobelia (also known by the wonderful names Indian Tobacco, Asthma Weed, Pukeweed, or Vomitwort) is a another genus in the family Campanulaceae, comprising some 200 species. The common annual one shown here is a form of Lobelia erinus.

  

This tiny froglet was by GB's pond on Lewis and was finding the going heavy because his pads kept sticking to the dry stone until GB wet it to enable it to get back into the pond. (What a convoluted sentence that was - 4/10 Must try harder.)

Last Saturday we hired a market stall in Birkenhead and it poured down most of the day but that didn't stop a lone Starling from occasionally wandering under the tables to see what it could pick up. A juvenile, it was wonderfully speckled.

Did you know that a chap called Eugene Scheiffelin was a 19th Century American Shakespeare fanatic who introduced all 55 species of bird mentioned in Shakespeare into the USA. Despite little success with most species his 100 Starlings had become many millions by the 1960s when the State of California culled 9 million with no impact at all on their numbers. Nowadays there are 200 million of them in America - a third of the World's population.

Did you also know that Starlings are excellent mimics. Among the birds they mimic are Greenfinches, Magpies, and Swallows but to really show their talents they can imimtate cats and ice cream vans and in our garden I have heard them mimic telephones ringing. The Nokia ring tone is said to be a particular favourite.

Have you noticed how very rarely one comes across worm casts on the lawn nowadays?   They used to be all over everyone's lawn at one time but now they are quite a rarity.  This one shows the effect of the recent continuous downpours and looks more like animal poo...

Unfortunately the worm population of many parts of the UK is under great threat at present from the New Zealand Flatworm (Arthurdendyus triangulatus and related species).  The upper surface is dark, purplish brown with a narrow, pale buff edge. The underside is also pale buff. They are pointed at both ends, and ribbon-flat.  A mature flatworm at rest is about 1cm wide and 6cm long. When extended, it can be up to 30cm long, and proportionally narrower.  This interloper first arrived in the UK in the 1960s and feeds exclusively on earthworms.  It can reduce the numbers to below detectable levels in the right conditions. The species common on Merseyside and in the South-west is the orangey-red (Australoplana sanguinea var alba).

A worm cast (also known as worm casting or vermicast) is a biologically active mound containing thousands of bacteria, enzymes, and remnants of plant materials that were not digested by the earthworm (Lumbricus terrestris and other species).  The composting process continues after a worm casting has been deposited. In fact, the bacterial population of a cast is much greater than the bacterial population of either ingested soil, or the earthworm's gut.  An important component of this dark mass is humus which is a complicated material formed during the breakdown of organic matter. One of its components, humic acid, provides many binding sites for plant nutrients, such as calcium, iron, potassium, sulphur and phosphorus.  These nutrients are stored in the humic acid molecule in a form readily available to plants, and are released when the plants require them.  So despite the fact that in large quantities worm casts used to look unsightly they were good for the soil...

It is a sad state of affairs when a sort of Blog supposedly about a Pensby garden is 'rained off'. It just is so horrible out there at the moment that I haven't ventured out at all. So its a trip to Yorkshire and the Hebrides for my readers... Well, perhaps not. Yorkshire has gone to sleep so I cannot pinch the Woodpecker from Mark for the moment. (Mark runs his Blog through the University server and it won't say hello to me at the moment.) So here is a baby House Sparrow in GB's garden. Now is that not cuter than a camel!

  

  

(In the process of putting these four photos on my Blog I have just discovered that when you download photos from an e-mail they take on the properties of the date and time they were downloaded as opposed to the date and time they were taken or put in the e-mail.)

This garden feature was brought from the caravan, complete with contents, when we packed up there last year. All this year the sedums and saxifrages which fill it have been invaded this year by hundreds of seedlings which I have been pulling up virtually every time I pass it. One escaped and reached fruition (or rather florification) today. It turned out to be ...

a Violet. How frustrating that I have pulled up so many of them. It just goes to show that we should not get rid of plants unless we are certain they are 'weeds'.

The sun brought out some insects today including this hoverfly which I think is Neoascia podagrica though it could be another member of that genus.

A fungus appeared in the grass on the back lawn. Species uncertain as yet...    I picked 4lb 7oz of apples from the James Grieve apple tree today.   Stewed apple and apple scones on Sunday, I think.    I also put out some stale Brazil nuts and sultanas on the bird table and within an hour a Coal Tit had arrived.   Since we haven't had Coal Tits on the bird table for about four months I want to know how they found out so quickly that there was a change of feed around.   Are they psychic?

This micromoth, Pyrausta aurata, one of which I photographed in June, has been very common in the garden recently. Unfortunately the particularly red specimen inset in the top right of the picture flew off before I could get a decent photo. There has been little else of interest in the garden lately though a male Gatekeeper butterfly also paid a brief visit as we were sitting in the conservatory today.

I got up early and wandered around the garden but as my double vision is bad at the moment I couldn't spot many insects. (Illogical really, you'd think I would see twice as many but it doesn't work like that.) So I contented myself with photographing some of the flowers like this Common Evening Primrose (Oenothera biennis).

The Cox's Orange Pippins on our apple tree never reach a very large size but they are fully ripe already and need picking.

I have a range of Buddleia plants in the garden and this reddish one contrasts nicely with the bluish mauve of the one I photographed yesterday with the Large White on it.

Rudbeckia and Yellow Loosestrife are among the other flowers keeping the garden beautiful at the moment.

  

This is what the castle grounds at Stornoway looked like on Tuesday lunchtime.

This what the size of the stream is on a more normal day in June!

The pots on the patio are looking super at the moment.

The sun is shining and I will have to get into a routine of watering the pots and baskets again, something that hasn't really been necessary since April.

The James Grieves apple tree is so loaded with fruit that all its branches are weighed down, almost to the ground.

  

Up on Lewis a Twite took up residence in GB's garage.

And this is Playcheirus clypeatus.

A Speckled Wood with very prominent yellow markings was sunning itself on the hedge today. It was obviously a female as their markings are always more pronounced than those of the male which tends to be darker with paler, smaller spots.

Among the wild plants that are flowering in the wild flower garden at the moment is the Upright Hedge Parsley (Torilis japonica).

A ladybird larva was hiding under one of the leaves on the Birch tree this afternoon. Not sure which species. (Subsequently discovered it is the Orange Ladybird.)

Monkey Flower (Mimulus guttatus) is just one of the yellow wild flowers in the garden today. The Common Evening Primrose (Oenothera biennis) has just about opened its buds but it will be a few days before it is at its best.

Today was a very sunny and at times warm day which brought out a variety of hoverflies. These included Episyrphus balteatus...

Melanostoma scalare (in flight) and...

the large and attractive Helophilus pendulus.

The Introductory Bit.... which is why it comes after the rest!

The font used is Comic sans MS and if this is not one of the fonts loaded on your computer I would strongly recommend adding it to the Fonts folder in your Windows Folder. This can be done by downloading it free from http://simplythebest.net/fonts/fonts/comic_sans_ms.html

I have done various blogs in the past, most notably a Hebridean one
http://tigh-na-mara.angelfire.com/hebrides/
and one from my Pensby garden
http://www.angelfire.com/planet/pensby/willows/

This new blog is designed to continue the latter and I may occasionally add photos from outside the garden on those odd occasions that I venture further afield. I am also tempted to add a photo or two from GBE, HJE and MAG....

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