It was more like a Spring, rather than a late-Winter' Day: a Glorious Single-Cardigan Day

Super-Sunny. We started off on the Allotments with some Sugar-Spray to hopefully attract some Hoverflies. We shouldn't have bothered: it attracted just a couple of Blue-Bottle Flies.

We didn't need it anyway.

At least five (5) Ladybirds, all assumed 7-Spotters, were out warming themselves in the Sunshine viz.

And we subsequently saw another one on the Box Hedge in the Garden (at Home).

There were also quite a few Spiders, including Nursery Web Spiders galore, warming themselves. We must try and learn about some of the more Common Species.

Of particular interest was a Yellow Dung Fly (Scathophaga stercoraria) viz.

Interesting, since we understand that there are a number of Scathophaga' Species which are very similar: however, S. stercoraria is the only one with black antennae (the others have Orange antennae).

Oh: and we did see some Hoverflies: three (3) Episyrphus balteatuses and (at least) two Meliscaeva auricollises, including these Guys:

Moving on to the Gardens at Hall Place, we added Bees to the List of Critters seen: namely, assumed Honey Bees (loads around) and a few Buff-Tailed Bumblebees viz.:

And three more Hoverflies: including our first Eristalis tenaxes of the Year viz.

Birds seen included this Mistle Thrush and this Greylag Goose:

And we couldn't neglect the Lichens so here we have (at least) Xanthoria parietina and assumed Physcia adscendens: