Interesting visitors or regular inhabitants?

This was the first one which we found last summer and we were amazed to see it on this rose. We wondered where it had come from and how it was surviving. The best guess was that at the end of term some child had brought it home from school to look after and then it had escaped! We then, over the next four months found several more, mostly on the Hypericum. They were all adults and all seemed very healthy. In case you are wondering what they are, they are Stick Insects!

Then this spring I found a baby one clinging to the Weigela. Another one in the garage and one in the kitchen. So obviously my adults were breeding. But where? And how had they survived over the very cold winter we had had?

And then recently I found another one, again a baby, on a plastic tub in my kitchen. And after that several more on the Hypericum. All babies. I haven’t yet seen an adult Stick Insect this year yet! There is time!

I have to be especially careful when cutting branches off the Weigela as these tiny creatures just drop onto one, or onto the ground where they could be trodden underfoot!

This is obviously turning into a wild life post. So here is a picture of two young blackbirds taking dirt baths under my currant bushes. I don’t think the blackcurrant roots will have been overjoyed as they are very shallow rooted! To really see the picture click on it to enlarge. I had to take it from inside the house so as not to frighten them away!

And it has stopped raining!