It is surprising to us how many different kind of animlas find their way in our garden and start living in this habitate.

It starts of with the Ringelnatter snake (Natrix natrix), moves on with hedgehogs (Erinaceus europaeus), Bats (Microchiroptera) a mandarin duck which landed in an emergency situation on our pond, all the way to a sparrow hawk which unfortunately killed a singing bird in a dive right behind our house

We are pretty sure that due to the nature of our garden with our variety of bushes and plants our garden offers good cover for even more animals who roam about without us spotting them. 

One example for this for sure is a 50 cm long Ringelnatter which we were able to spot 2 times near the pond side but we have never been lucky to take a picture of.

The following picture shows a dragon fly in the morning light.

For a couple of years we see in summer evenings the Taubenschwänzchen (Macroglossum stellatarum) (no idea what the english name of this butterfly is)feeding on our butterflyx bush (Buddleja davidii)

The Taubenschwänzchen hovers like a Colibri and can be found almost over all of Europe. It is a pretty hectic butterfly who moves on from flower to flower to suck nectar - because of the quick moves it is very difficult to take a picture of.

Since a couple of years we see in late summer hedgehogs in our garden. Our garden attracted in 2004 a hedgehog mom with 4 little hedgehoggies. In 2006 we had a lone rider hedgehog moving around in our garden

For this year in 2007 we have not seen a hedgehog yet put think they will show up as first fruits of our plum tree have fallen to the ground and the plums plus our neighbours apples attract them.

wndfall plums and neighbour's apples attract hedgehogs pretty good. If we hear in the evenings the hedgehogs snuffle and wheeze we put out some cat food and fresh water. After a couple of days we can watch them feed at almoist the same hour of the day... 

Once fall comes we put out some hay for the hedgehogs which they pull under the wooden pallets we have as a floor in our little firewood shelter on which the firewood sits. They get prepared for winter and build themselves a nice, cozy hide away... 

We have always wondered why our bird food has been compeltely emptied after one day - until we spotted the reason for the intensive bird food loss...

A squirrel dicsovered the eays going feeding grounds and enjoey thoroughly the sunflower seeds. Unfortunatley the pictures that I took from Mr. Squirrel sitting in our bird house did not turn out good enough to be publicated BUT it looked very cute when Mr. Suqirrel sat in the bird house and munched away on the sunflower seeds.

The squirrel filled the bird house completely and all the birds sat on surrounding branches & bushed and were brawling...