Ten-spot Ladybirds

The first day of really warm weather brought out the garden invertebrates today, including lots of very busy solitary bees, bee flies and four species of butterfly - peacock (a rather tatty specimen freshly emerged from hibernation), brimstone, small tortoiseshell and small white. As you can see some of the insects couldn't wait to start creating the next generation! A Saucer Bug which landed on our patio was a bit of a surprise - it clearly didn't notice the ponds. 

In the evening there was a chorus of toads in our largest pond, with more arriving across the grass (see extra), I counted over twenty-five individuals - clearly a few had arrived in the previous days as there were the first strings of toad spawn in the pond.