The tadpoles have hatched and are growing quickly. They are concentrating themselves in dense clumps in the shallower water at one end of the garden pond. I suspect as they get bigger they will begin to move out.
Tadpoles
In the picture below you can see some of the braver ones!
Tadpoles
You can click here to learn a bit more about our Irish frogs.
Looking out toward Achil Island, Co Mayo
Regular readers may remember my post about the first bumblebees and may remember this photo.
Some of you noticed the bee was carrying some little passengers and we were wondering if they would be detrimental to the bumble. I have since learned that these little mites are called phoretic mites (Parasitellus). The mites are just hitchhikers and will not harm the bee. They are a non-feeding nymph stage of the adult mites. They over-winter on the queen bees. Once the queen establishes a nest the mites drop off. They remain in the nest, feeding on the nest detritus, a sort of live-in nest cleaner for the bees.
So yesterday, I was saying how great it was to have reached the spring equinox, but then the weather decided to throw a spanner in the works. We had some snow this morning – it was minimal – just enough to put a smile on the children’s faces!
Minimal
Thanks to bythebrinny for reminding me that it is the spring equinox today here in the Northern Hemisphere. It’s funny how we like to put labels on days. And every year those labels seem to increase, so that today we have all sorts of days from International day of happiness (also today) to Memory Day (tomorrow), or Puppy day (Thursday).
However, it does at least make sense (to me anyway) to celebrate the spring equinox. The word equinox actually refers to the time the sun is directly over the equator. And for 2017 that was 10.28 on the 20th March. With approximately 12 hours light and 12 hours dark, it seems a good time to consider the start real start of spring. So happy Equinox everyone
Primroses
Well the luck of the Irish wasn’t with us today for our local St Patrick’s Day Parade but how great that everyone still came out – both those participating and onlookers. I just loved this yellow bee hive made from yellow drainage pipe.
And despite the rain there was lots of colour and great messages.
This week’s photo challenge was to take a photo atop of something. So I had to dig back to some old photos – this one from 2006, when my husband and I climbed Nephin (806m), one of our higher mountains here in Mayo. You can see right the way to the west coast, though the day wasn’t hundred percent clear.
At this time of year as queen bees are beginning to emerge from hibernation it is really important that there is food for them. Yesterday, I received this fascinating table in my inbox. The National Biodiversity Data Centre collects records of bees and the flower the bee was feeding on. With exception of Mahonia all the plants are native. It is also clear that dandelions are important. Here’s a couple of things you could do this spring:
Bumblebee on dandelion
Murtagh's Meadow 