First Spider of the Year

During the evening of 4th March, this Spider crawled across my pillow whilst in bed reading. It is the Daddy Long-legs Spider or Pholcus phalangioides. This spider can often be seen upside down on the ceiling in the corner of a room where it makes its web. It has the ability to kill other spiders but is not venomous to us humans. The second photo above nicely shows the circular Carapace with the central dark marking. Also, the legs with their contrasting pale and dark bands. No home should be without one!

Beast from the East

Thanks to the "Beast from the East" this lovely Fieldfare turned up in the garden on the 2nd of March. The BBC Earth twitter feed suggested that the very cold weather spell had brought thousands of Fieldfare and Redwings across from Northern Europe. However, it is more than likely that these birds were already wintering in Britain since the Autumn, and due to the lack of food supplies in the open countryside, they have been forced into gardens. When the ground is frozen soil invertebrates are not on the menu and only switch to windfall apples and berries when these become unavailable.
The last time I had a Fieldfare in the garden was January 2010, when we had an even larger dumping of snow.