Garden Project 16 - Variety!!

After a week away, even though there has been no rain, the garden is a riot of colours - all of it self seeded now or original plants probably purchased back in the late 60s when I moved to Toft (my only house removal within Toft included many plants as cuttings, seeds etc). Quite a few days work to reestablish paths etc and record all the new invertebrate inhabitants!

Dorset - Chesil Beach (30/05/2023)

Back from Dorset but still lots to process and record on my Blog (aka diary!!). I wanted to visit Chesil beach as I always find it a wonderful mixed wildlife area and was rewarded with insects, flowers and birds - here only a sample. The skylark had a very battered tail presumably as a result of ground nesting in a very rough terrain. Quite a few butterflies including mating Common Blues and lots of Bee Orchids, Broomrape and Wild Gladioli.

Spiders and Damselflies at Sunset 2

Another clear sunset so out round the lake this time using a ring flash to illuminate the foreground - Common Blue Damselflies and the Long-jawed spider.

Spiders at Sunset Part 1

 So far dawn has not been suitable for macro photography by the fishing lakes as there have been strong winds but a couple of evenings have been great for sunset photography. Here a selection of spider images incorporating the sunset from Thursday evening. These were without flash fill in. Part 2 from Friday used fill-in flash.

Pondlife at Mapperton, Dorset

Yesterday morning, we visited Mapperton Gardens on our way to Kingcombe and spent a long while photographing the various animals on and under the water including Water Boatmen sculling around, a Diving Beetle larva and  Pondskaters on the surface. Most of the time it was trying to catch the newts as the came up to the surface- both Palmated newts and Smooth Newts plus a large number of Toad tadpoles