Chit Chat
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I plant the garden exclusively to attract the above and have just spent a sublime couple of hours in the garden watching primarily different types of bees on all the species of plants I planted.......
...nature is spellbinding.
..with the hot spell this week hopefully things will be even more active...
Pictures to follow over coming weeks...oh yeah
...nature is spellbinding.
..with the hot spell this week hopefully things will be even more active...
Pictures to follow over coming weeks...oh yeah
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Excellent....
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Yes, truly excellent
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Gooooo sloooow furry moths....
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I planted buddlea bushes in my garden they have just flowered in the last week or so loads of bees but hardly seen any butterflys yet ,on tht note have not seen a grasshopper for about 3 years ! where the fook have they gone ?
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I think he did Kill Bill then snuffed it..
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...away we go...
 ...a Scarlett Tiger Mothresting on the glass of the patio doors... ..a day flying moth that seems to be spreading north and east from its traditional base in the south west.... ..taken on 24 June at 6.30pm.. ..beautiful. |
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Lovely picture of the tiger moth egner.
Here is a photo taken a couple of years ago of bees foraging for nectar in a globe artichoke flower. [ This image is no longer available. ] |
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....great stuff foinavon.....that would have kept him busy for a while.
...been out in the hot weather with the camera.....waiting for them to be approved and will post some more. |
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 Red Admiral on Catmint.........taken 29 June at 1830. |
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 ...a blue cornflower (grown from seed) ....mingling with meadow buttercups (bought as two small plug plants 2 years ago...now clumps popping up all over the place) ....taken on 30 June at 1005. |
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 ..a hoverfly with sunlight illuminating its wings...resting on the fluffy flowerheads of Valerian......( bought as two plug plants, now spreading) ..lovely Vanilla smell as well |
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Nice moth pic, quite like the others, especially the arty shot of the cornflower. Sure you know that the red admiral is actually a small tortoiseshell. I saw one last week, these used to be about the most common butterfly in my memory and seeing one would hardly be an event, now they seem to be in massive decline where I live in the south east.
Carry on the good work and post some more. |
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Thanks Flowermyth...and thanks for the correction....
...some of the butterflies can look similar to me....I have one waiting to be approved that's an either/or between a Brown Argus and Common Blue!! |
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Brown argus is tiny, quite a bit smaller than the common blue female, but, as Paul Whitehouse used to say in the pub in Harry Enfield's show - butterfly recongition... 'ardest game in the World.
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I like the interplay of the colours with light and dark on the buttercup photo. Buttercups are quite invasive but are a very beautiful native perennial. Another attractive native "weed" is orange hawkweed which I see growing in lawns and on wasteland around here.
http://www.british-wild-flowers.co.uk/H-Flowers/Hawkweed,%20Orange.htm |
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Wish the councils would wait till sept to cut all the grass. poor bees have very little to gather. they are left with borders.
totally obsessed with lawns. we push everything out into tight margins. |
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I planted my back garden with wildflowers. Actually it looks like five foot high wild weeds. The bugs have not complained.
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Nice thread guy and lovely photos. My first Marbled White of the year here (Mid Sussex) yesterday. A selling-plater as far as flying goes but a very pretty butterfly
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last year I saw a swallowtail butterfly on buddlea fantastic colourfull looking thing ,plus another butterfly I think called a peacock nice colours and has eye like spots on each wing
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if you have any left over cornflower seeds or similar a good idea is to scatter a few on waste or common ground they should spring up and food for bees and butteflys and all kind of wildlife
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bees on blackberry flowers, taken 5th June 2015
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Another favourite native flower, Red Campion growing on a grassy bank. 5th June 2015
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great stuff foinavon.....havnt got any Red Campion...need to add some.
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Amazing.....
..some fantastic comments...suggestions...observations.... and actions on here.... ...nice to know the natural world has some appreciative friends. |
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 ...Bee on a Geum "Totally Tangerine" ..(purchased two plants 4 years ago...divided them and now have about 12 healthy clumps!!!) |
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They bring back memories of childhood walking along a woodland stream and suddenly encountering the strikingly beautiful bright pink flowers in a shady spot.
You can buy the seeds from Kings. A related garden plant is Ragged Robin. https://www.kingsseeds.com/Products/Herbs/Campion/CAMPION-RED-(Silene-dioica)-P |
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..taken 30 June ...at 1025.
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..thanks foinavon....am definitely going to add for next year.
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..at last...
 ..a Brown Argus or Common Blue on a Corn Marigold (grown from seed)... ..little fella wouldn't open his wings on anything he landed on......as subsequent pictures will show...... ..taken 30 June at 1520. |
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 ..another of the same chap...doing his best impression of a sun dial!!! |
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 ..same fella on a spent Geum (Totally Tangerine) flowerhead.... |
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 ...and here he is again...on a Birds Foot Trefoil flower....(3 plug plants bought 3 years ago)..hasn't spread much but whats there is great for wildlife I think... ..think its a larval foodplant for some butterflies as well as providing just nectar. |
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The tangerine geum flower looks very delicate with papery petals like a small poppy.
How do you selectively darken the background in your photos? Are you using photoshop or something similar? |
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Read this Zorro;
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3058301/Bungling-council-worker-destroys-blooming-meadow.html Over hundreds of hours, green-fingered volunteers lovingly sowed thousands of seeds and bulbs to create a wild flower meadow for their community. Then along came a council worker on a mower who was apparently oblivious to its unkempt beauty – and razed a swathe of it to the ground. The project to transform the area around St Cuthbert’s church in Darlington into a ‘peaceful eco-haven’ was led by the Friends of the Earth group in the town, which won a £5,000 grant from the Royal Botanic Gardens to fund it. They planted bluebells, wood anemones and winter aconite over 1,250sq/ft, and even held meetings with the council on how to nurture the flowers. But a council worker partially destroyed their efforts with a ride-on lawn mower to the dismay and residents. 'We are all incredibly disappointed at the recent mowing of these wild flower areas and there’s no doubt this is a setback,' said Kendra Ullyart, co-ordinator of Darlington Friends of the Earth. 'We realise this was a mistake and we will work hard together to make sure the plants flourish. 'However, we want the council to learn from this sad situation and change its mowing policies on a larger scale. 'Just think how wonderful our town could be for pollinators and people if it was full of wildflowers.' Brian Graham, from the council, admitted the mistake but also said: ‘We’re optimistic the area will still bloom.' 'We hope that residents and visitors to Darlington will still get lots of enjoyment from the thousands of other bulbs and bedding plants located around the town.' |
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...well I guess photography is simply "writing with light".....and so where light falls within an image is paramount.
..lets take the cornflower/buttercup image... .I wanted the focus and therefore the light to fall on the lone cornflower and to remain relatively sharp and detailed.. with the buttercups as a periphery. So..focusing on the blue cornflower and because it was as bright sunshine as you can get...I used a shutter speed of 1/1250 seconds...which is fairly quick...and of course the quicker the shutter speed the less general light is let in..... but as well as that... I used an ISO setting of 100...this is the equivalent of how sensitive film was to light in the olden days..... ..it was a bright sunny day....I didn't want too much sensitivity to light otherwise you may have seen all the detail in the background which would have destroyed the look and detracted from the cornflower.... I wanted to let the light in where I was focusing and hopefully leave the background in silhouette. ...when I looked at the image on the camera I was mostly satisified ...there was a little detail in the background that was detracting from things but rather than change the settings.....maybe decrease the shutter spped further so less light is let in ....which can be done of course and shoot again...I knew a few tweeks in the pretty simple program I have would sort it out... ...so in the program I adjusted upward ... slightly...contrast and colour saturation. I am by NO means and expert...but one crucial piece of advice would be to disable all automatic settings on your camera and experiment with different shutter speeds and ISO settings depending on the look you would like. |
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Very nice
. Sorry to be picky, but the photo posted at 09.03 is not a Red Admiral but a Small Tortoiseshell.There's supposed to be an invasion of Painted Ladies this weekend taking advantage of the strong, warm southerly winds. (Hope they can get past Calais). |
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Lovely photos. Great thread
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yes Arley....thanks for the correction....sometimes they look (a little) alike to me.
 ..thanks Makybe. ...more to follow later tonight and in the coming days hopefully. |
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Thanks for the explanation egner. I suppose I've been lazy and just use the camera on automatic. From now on will do some experimentation. My camera (Fujifilm Finepix HS50) has manual settings so will dig out the handbook.
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