the garden!

Thanks Shysongbird for your comment on the previous post :) Thought Id post some wide shots of the garden itself. Theyre not great, and the garden is way off how I'd like it, but its getting there.

Whats flowering in the garden right now!!

Should probably go on my other blog, but its in the garden so its going on here!!!

We have some truly stunning plants in flower at the moment in the garden, heres some of the best right now.

We cant ID this Clematis, so any help appreciated! Flowers are about 6 inches across


Clematis 'Vyvan Pennell'. Now fully open! Flowers range from 6-8 inches across and we have 20+.. its breath-taking


We dont know the species ID of this either. Its just come into flower today and its just lovely.. highly scented as well.


Possibly the best flower macro Ive taken (until the next time!). Rosa 'Peace' Hybrid Tea


This is an amazing rose, full of fire and passion! With 30+ blooms at the moment its really something. Flowers are about 3 inches


Posted this before I know, but its still amazing. Upto about 20 blooms now, lightly scented. Very short-lived flowers though, few days and theyre all over.


No idea what this is! Shrubby habit, flowers last for only a day. Looks anemone like, but is'nt.

God you've got to love summer huh????

shocking mealworm prices

Ive been doing a bit of interweb research on the cost of mealworms and Im quite shocked at my findings.

Homebase want about £6 for a 1 litre tub, (about 200 grams as I recon)
Haiths want about £4.84 for 100 grams upto £39 for 1kg
GBS want £6.99 for 100g which is by far the most expensive Ive found.

www.wildbirddirect.com are only asking £2.99 per 100 gram upto £16.99 for 1kg.. thats under half the cost of Haiths at the top end and a hell of a lot cheaper than the others also. I was so stunned Ive been looking for the catch from wildbirddirect.. the only one was that theyre giving you a free 10 ltr storage bucket with every 1kg order!

whats up with our suppliers?? I can stand paying more for the RSPB brand at homebase as its going to a good cause, but the others...? Oh, its also possible to get 1kg on ebay for £15.99, so it seems its readily available at those kind of prices. I cant help but feel slightly ripped off with my dead insect lavae needs!!

finally I get time

Its been so busy Ive not had time to post!! whatever next?!

Anyway, yesterday I felt all creative so I decided to build a mealworm feeder for Reg. The suspended one kept getting emptied by the starlings, so hopefully this one will be a bit more robust. I copied the design from the RSPB one, but made it quite alot bigger.

Im pretty pleased with how it came out!


Reg took a little while to figure out how to land on it. I purposefully didnt put a perch on it to try to discourage the starlings from it.

Lucky shot

got this lucky shot of a greattit while laying upside down on the grass under the tree!

dunnock

think we had a dunnock this morning! couldnt get a shot as he was way too fast for me. he perched for a short time on the fence and sung a lovely song then flew off. he was jumping around the feeders but not settling on anything... exciting to get a new species.

will try for shots next time I see him

new blog

I thought.. seeing as I'm going to be doing a lot of photography that I'd create a separate blog for it. It might get quite camera geeky though!

Click this post title to jump to it.

Some shots in the sun

Just some pics. I sat alot closer today.

First time Ive seen a Collared Dove in the garden


Thats some mouthful! But then again, hes good at giving everyone a mouthful!


Reg looking warn out from chick feeding


The Nuthatch appeared while I was sat out there, was very surprised! Pity the light went at the wrong moment

Squirrel Nutkin and others

just after posting the last, mr. squirrel arrived and gave us a lovely show on the bird table :) so heres a few shots. (was through the window)

He/she had his fledgling in tow, but I didnt have the light to get the depth of field to bring both into frame. It was sweet, he/she was feeding him pieces. If you look carefully you can see the nut broken in his/her feet.


Check this way!


Check that way!


Make sure and...


STUFF YOUR FACE!!

new camera pics!

here we are, some first goes. Been a while since I was able to mess about like this.. much fun. The first 2 are processed from RAW, the others arent.

The colours in this are great I think


Goldie! Plus his mate behind


Mr. Chaffy sat there for ages.. Im sure he was posing.


Totally the wrong lens to do this with, that lens comes next week, but I couldn't resist


Mr Robin (Reg). This really is the limit of my zoom/crop at the moment. I need a telephoto extender