Rhinoceros caterpillar ??

What on earth is this??  It looks like a combination of a normal caterpillar, a rhino and a space creature with several yellow eyes. If you know what it is, please let me know!!

Cardinal Beetle (Pyrochroa coccinea)

Several Cardinal beetles have invaded parts of Svångemåla. Good looking and hungry creatures. Not my favourites.

What is Mr. Bullfinch brewing??

He is getting less afraid of me and looks down on me with a very daring stare so the question is if he is brewing something "a bit stronger" in his house made up of hops???

Bullfinch

The Bullfinch (Pyrrhula pyrrhula) is a bird you see very often in the winter but not so in the summer. I was therefore pleaseantly surprised when I one day saw a couple going in and out of my hop-pole to attend to their 

nestlings. I was also surprised to hear what a lovely, soft song they have.

Mrs Bullfinch

 Mr Bullfinch

The couple's  apartment "house".

Small but beatiful flowers and a bird :)

The Chaffinch (Fringilla coelebs) is one of the most common birds in Sweden and although this picture is not taken in Svångemåla there are plenty of them here. 

 The fragrance of jasmine has been heavy for a while but it and the flowers are fading now.

A flower that deserves more appreciation if the lime blossom (Tilia cordata). Tiny but beautiful!

Like the lime blossom, the lingonberry (Vaccinium vitis-idaea)  flower is small and difficult to see but well worth bringing out a magnifier to have a closer look!

Young moose in the middle of the pantry !

There are many areas in and around Svångemåla where the forests have been cut down to give space to new and fresh trees, full of juicy leaves. The moose and deers love those areas since they do not even have to bend down to eat.

Dramatic sky in Svångemåla !

No Photoshop needed !

Garden work

As you might remember, a group of wild pigs invaded and destroyed a large part of my garden / lawn last year. After having consulted several "experts" I decided to use a cultivator to smash all divots to as small pieces as possible, remove them and replace them with new soil.  Several "experts" told me that it would not be possible to do that due to too many stones and roots but it turned out to be no problem at all. It took two men about three days to go over the whole area and remove all divots.

The maximum load the truck could take was 13,000 kg ( 8 m3) so that was what we got.

The best part of the job was to fill in the areas where we had removed the divots / grass turf since the lawn then started to look nice again and gave us a hint of what the final result would be.

All areas are now sown with grass seeds and a mixture of various flowers, suitable for the environment. All it takes now is some rain and warm weather!

Twiggy 2013

She is not growing very fast but has again made some progress since the year before.

This is what Twiggy looked like four years ago.

http://svangemalanews.blogspot.se/2009/05/twiggy-twig.html

Spring came and went in about two weeks :(

I will remember spring 2013 as one of the shortest ever. A fast camera made it still possible to catch some of it although I miss the slow awakening of nature and the drawn out miracle called spring.

Anemone hepatica (Common Hepatica, Liverwort, Kidneywort or Pennywort) One of my favorite flowers since it is one of the very first you see when the snow has gone.

Anemone nemorosa  (Wood anemone, windflower or thimbleweed) In some parts of Svångemåla the ground is almost completely covered by anemones.

There are very few dangerous snakes in Sweden but this one, a Vipera berus (Common European Adder or Common European Viper) can be found in Svångemåla. This one looked unusually fat and was sleeping in the sun.

Acer pseudoplatanus bud (Maple) Click on the picture to get a better look!

Usnea (Old Man's Beard) is very common in and around Svångemåla.

It is just amazing how trees can survive and even thrive even when the circumstances are not the best.