Surrey Docks Farm Wildlife

We found these two immature female bush crickets in the plant room last week, crickets have much longer antennae than grasshoppers, we can tell these are female as they have ovipositors (spike at the back end for laying eggs)

The #BigButterflyCount 2024 is officially here! 🦋 Our butterflies and moths need our help more than ever. This is why we are urging everyone to get out for the Count to help us conserve them. 💚 Download our free app and ID guide today 👉 bigbutterflycount.org

It's a rare day gardening when you don't find a frog at the farm, todays looked very comfortable sheltering in the cool damp shade of a saxifrage

There's a few Holly blue butterflies around the farm, the top of their wings is very blue and visable when they fly, and sometimes when they stop to bask in the sun, but they usually close them when feeding, like this one, on apple blossom, presenting the silver underside

We’re finding lots of these little frogs in the grassy borders of the Greenagers growing beds.

Although we have honey bees in the orchard, most of our pollinating is done by other insects like this lovely Tawney mining bee with its face buried in a broad bean flower #GoodToGrow2024

Speckled wood butterfly in the farm today

We have a very beautiful visitor in our wildlife pond

Lovely to have a bit of warm weather and see the butterflies coming back, this one is a comma

The first tadpoles of the year are now wriggling around in the pond

It's frogspawn festival time again! This was the scene yesterday in the @surreydocksfarm pond. Watch as the frogs jostle about and clamber upon the frogspawn as if it were a cushion! There were about 7 clumps of frogspawn and 20-30 frogs visible - many more should arrive soon...

The pond is getting really lively now! 🐸🐸🐸🐸🐸🐸🐸

Spring is on the way, which means frog and toad spawn! Join us on the 6th March for a free amphibian evening to learn all about these fun little creatures! #se16 #southwarknature #frogspawn #amphibians #ponds

And so it stars again😁🐸🐸🐸🐸🐸🐸🐸🐸🐸🐸🐸🐸🐸🐸🐸🐸

Today is warm enough for the first few Huge bumble bees to be out and about

@GermanderS @surreydocksfarm What a beautiful cricket!

A couple of interesting creatures spotted @surreydocksfarm: a Roesel's Bush Cricket (can you spot why this one wasn't as jumpy as crickets normally are? Yes, it has a leg missing!) The striking dragonfly is a Migrant Hawker, named for its habit of 'hawking' for insect prey.

I found a frog sitting on the edge of a cucumber pot, quite happy to be filmed

2/2: And this was on a day that I was seeing lots of butterflies in pairs, and up to four butterflies at a time! It was impossible to get them all in one photo, but here I've captured a pair of Red Admirals, and a Speckled Wood and a Comma.

1/2: A stunning Comma butterfly spotted at @surreydocksfarm - probably the freshest, brightest one I've ever seen. Plus there was a second one hanging around! This was at my new favourite butterfly-spotting spot - just through the willow arch alongside the orchard...