Yesterday I heard for sure bee-eaters over the cityscape when I was resting on a bench. I think I ever saw them, but they're tiny dots very far in the sky so they could have been anything. And a fly that every year I welcome inside my house appeared at the glass door of my apartment. It's welcome because it helps to fight againts stored products pests.
BIRDS:
52.
European bee-eater (Merops apiaster)
INVERTEBRATES:
164.
Scenopinus fenestralis
Today, I had a very pleasant walk along the river side with my boyfriend. The long various weeks of endless winds finally calmed down and the weather is magnific, swarms of insects took the opportunity of continue their activities and vertebrates feasted on them, In the city there are more swifts than the previous day, and also a black kite, and over the river a lot of house martins flied. There are also some little egrets, mallards, and the usual magpies and spotless starlings. Some barn swallows too. I investigated the herbaceous plants alongside the river shore. There were some damselflies and old and new insects for the year. A couple of hover fly species, honey bees busy at the land invaded by
Phyla nodiflora in full bloom. Nymphs of gomphocerine grasshoppers, too young for ID. In the water I saw a carp, largemouth basses and mosquitofishes. I've heard a reed warbler from close in the reed beds where I searched,unsuccessfully, for reed grasshoppers. I even saw a shade of it flying quickly amongst the reeds. Also in the reeds, a very nice, colorful rove beetle new for the year. A great egret flied far over the river. I also saw a roosting black-crowned night heron on a stone just avobe water surface. Feral muscovy ducks and house cats roamed the zone. Mallards came anxiously to a couple of old man that bringed corn for them. In the mallows I saw nymphs of
Pyrrhocoris apterus and a
Podagrica fuscicornis. I again missed the kingfisher, there is no way that I see one this year. But a little flock of blue tits with tame flegdings was always a good sight. There is still one robin, tough here is mostly a winter bird. Also first pied flycatcher of the year - an adult male. At the end of the walk came the best. A Cetti's warbler was moving silently in a rodent-like manner over the dry plants of the ground - about a meter of distance of me! I cursed to don't have my camera with me, as my photo of that species is of poor quality. That's the second time in my life that I see a Cetti's warbler so close and in a so clear background - first one was also in the very same zone, but many years ago. But that's not the best. About a minute later than the warbler, a fantastifabulous HOOOOPOOOE
landed just behind the wooden wall that limit the riverine forest, saw me, raised its crest in alarm, doubted a bit about what to do, and when I raised my phone for try a photo, it decided to flee. The zone, with the red disk of sun at dusk behind the bridges of the river, was full of a swarm of bats.
BIRDS:
53. European pied flycatcher (
Ficedula hypoleuca)
54. Common reed warbler (
Acrocephalus scirpaceus)
FISHES:
1. Common carp (
Cyprinus carpio)
2. Eastern mosquitofish (
Gambusia holbrooki)
3. Largemouth bass (
Micropterus salmoides)
INVERTEBRATES:
165.
Tetragnatha extensa
166.
Anobium punctatum (inside the glass of a shoe shop)
167.
Anthrenus pimpinellae
168.
Paederus fuscipes a big surprise!
169.
Sphaerophoria scripta (mating)
170.
Hyalopterus pruni
171.
Ischnura graellsii
)
