Beautiful!

Mum's garden is a perfect little nature reserve. It is situated in the beautiful Cotswold hills between Cirencester and Cheltenham and has the River Churn running along the bottom. There are plenty of both deciduous and coniferous trees and half the garden (the half that slopes down to the river) is left wild until it is cut back in early autumn.

After spending Saturday morning gardening (eternal weeding at this time of year!), I took a break and wandered down to the river with my camera. In the wild area I was very pleased to find a Common spotted Orchid, something that I've not noticed in the garden before. Another lovely flower is Betony.

Along the river I was lucky enough to find both male and female Beautiful Demoiselles. These truely are BEAUTIFUL insects!
There were quite a few butterflies flitting around, mostly Meadow Browns and Ringlets, but I was only able to photograph this lovely Large Skipper.

Mum's veg patch was a place that needed much weeding, it looked a whole lot better at the end of the weekend!

Playing with my new macro

I went out this morning to try out my new macro lens. I use a Nikon D40X body. The macro is a 105mm f2.8 and I also use a 70-300mm telephoto lens for birding.

I help out with the local Rodden Nature Reserve on the outskirts of Frome and have been trying to take photographs of the birds, bugs and flowers that inhabit the area. We have a website at http://www.roddennaturereserve.org.uk/ . This new macro lens should help alot!

Here are some of the Butterflies and Damselflies and Moths that I saw over there today.

Our pond and its wildlife

We've had quite a change in our garden this spring. I wish I'd taken more photos of the changes. In this photo the area around the pond that is now gravel used to be a very unkempt lawn. We have enjoyed getting some of the new plants that I've potted into various terracotta pots to dot around this new area. The bees are really enjoying the Poppies, Ceanothus and Primula at the moment. The Primula florindae has a particularly beautiful scent!



In and around the pond, the female newts are busy egg laying and we have several frogs enjoying the pondweed. I managed to get these photos of a Pond Skater, Azure Damselfly and Hoverfly (Helophilus pendulus) today in the sunshine. I wouldn't be without a pond in the garden, there is so much to watch!

Fairweather Gardener!

I went up to Mums for my usual 2 days of gardening last week, but the first day was a complete washout. It rained most of the day so I decided to clean windows instead (inside!). The Red-legged Partridge also decided to take shelter under the Cotinus and this Mayfly (Ephemera danica) landed on my Mum's window (a long way from the river down the bottom of the garden)

The next day was bright and sunny though so it was back into the garden. I got the last of the vegetables planted, some Red cabbage. This is a new vegetable for Mum to try in the garden so it will be interesting to see how they come on. The robin (as they so often do) kept me company while I was working on the vegetable patch.

The male Goldcrest was still eyeing up his own reflection from my Mum's bedroom so I couldn't resist taking more photos of him. Daft bird! (-: