squirrel, rainy day

During a very rainy day, last week...
 

Restored pond

My pond has gotten a new paint layer.

The paint had gone cracking on several places and even deeper under the paint, due to frost last winter. Before winter arrives, it was best to repair it, so that the frozen water cannot make the cracks even deeper. I'm so glad it succeeded. 

Only with the help of a very kind and friendly neighbour who repaired it all!

cocoon

 Recently I discovered a beautiful cocoon on the glass of my window.

I think it's the cocoon of a Cabbage white, (koolwitje)

Larva of orange ladybird

Today I noticed a very small larva, which looked like a ladybird larva. However this one is yellow, and the ones I know of are black combined with a little orange.

I could determine the larva, which is of an orange ladybird...in dutch:(Meeldauwlieverheersbeestje,) in latin it listens to the name of: Halyzia sedecimguttata.

A beautiful name for such a small creature of maybe smaller than one centimeter.

Smallest of the smallest

I haven't seen him for years.

To be exactly, it was in 2020 May 14 smallest of the smallest

This small bird...the Gold crest, (Regulus regulus), (Goudhaanje), is the smallest

of the smallest under the birds.

He has a beautiful golden crest in his head...and he is flying/moving extremely fast.

I was so happy to see him again, because I was thinking he might have disappeared totally.

Hedgehog

 Last Sunday I got from a good friend some hedgehog food. She herself has 2 Hedgehogs in her garden, coming every night for dinner. She refills the jar every time when it is empty...so they come back once or twice the same night!

I decided to serve the food...on a place they might pass. Every night a little closer to the door so that I might see them better. Every day, for three night in a row, the little plate was completely empty, so I knew I had some visitors.

Yesterday it was bingo...I saw a hungry Hedgehog nibbling the food..He really seems to like it a lot..next morning all the food was gone! So for tonight I refilled the saucer again for a yummy treat. 

Caterpillar

While gathering some nuts for the squirrels, I saw a yellow-green caterpillar crawling in the grass.

He was looking quite weird. having a kind of long red tail sticking up at the rear end.

I decided to take him home and find out all about him. I put him in a glass container, so that he would not run away, before I had found out his name. (Pale Tussock)(Calliteara pundibunda)(Meridians borstel).

He is really funny, having some brushes on his back, and the red brush at the end...

His host-plants are many, like beech, oak, birch and other trees. He pupates in leaflitter and overwinter as a cocoon. So I put him out under a birch-tree in my garden, between lots of leaves, so that he can cocoon someplace he likes.