Two garden ticks in a day

Two new species for the garden toeday - one of them a very sad corpse courtesy of one of our evil cats, we're afraid....

The posthumous species was a Water Shrew (Neomys fodiens)- ironically we saw one in July in the Wye Valley (a lifer for Julia), and this was only the third Simon had ever seen. Do they use our pond?

On a brighter point, this superb Wasp Spider (Argiope bruennichi) was alive and well in our long grass in the afternoon. A fairly recent colonist in the south of England, the speices has spread well inland, and has been recorded at Blashford before, but we've never seen one. Great to add to the garden list!