Garden Chafer

Managed a quick, short walk at lunch time today. Found this shiny garden chafer (Phyllopertha horticola) while I was trying to get closer to a red damselfly. He's surprisingly hairy.

Have just got back from a bat watch at our local nature reserve. Great fun and lots of bats around. Also saw my first stag beetles of the year charging around in the tree tops - always a fantastic sight. I'm hoping to find some to photograph over the next couple of weeks. We usually have a few wandering round the garden at this time of year.

The bat group had brought along a tiny rescued pipistrelle bat and a disabled noctule bat that can no longer fly but is now so tame it can cope with being shown to curious audiences. I took along our bat detector and we were given some good tips on which frequencies to use for the different bat species. There were soprano pipistrelles, common pipistrelles, noctules and Daubenton's bats around the lake and woods. Great evening and not too many biting things either.