Monday 12 July 2010

Birds, Bees and Butterflies.

I was sitting with my feet up having been shopping this morning, when I heard a lot of 'peep peeping' through the open french windows. I looked out to see a small flock of long-tailed tits feeding on the fat balls. There must have been seven or eight of them but I managed only to get three in one shot. They are such pretty little birds.
I gardened myself to a standstill last week and have been useless this weekend. The saying 'Be careful what you wish for' came to mind as I am reminded of saying back during all that cold spring weather "I'm looking forward to complaining about the heat!" I find that high humidity levels make life very difficult so have been resting on my laurels and sitting enjoying the garden. I can't find my butterfly book - is that a hairstreak feeding on the lavender in the photo above?
The marjoram is flopping all over the place and looks really untidy, but as the bees love it so much I won't cut it back until the flowers have finished. The garden seemed full of bees yesterday but they are difficult to photograph as they are on the move all the time. We seemed to have a good variety of sizes of bee - I didn't realise until recently how many different ones there are.


Mrs. Blackbird is still on her nest and popped up to see what was going on when I went upstairs to see if there was any sign of her babies. Our front bedroom has the best vantage point.

It's our group meeting tomorrow so no energy required for anything more than rather a lot of tongue wagging and oohing and aahing over other people's work. It's always a good day.

6 comments:

Carol Q said...

lovely nature photos Heather. I can understand you enjoying your meetings. nothing better than getting together with like minded people

Mac n' Janet said...

Here in the States we call it a Cabbage Butterfly, my husband says in England he thinks they call it a Small While.
Love your pictures.

Anonymous said...

Lovely photos. I'm amazed that so many birds can get onto a fat ball feeder at once. My sparrows and assorted tits are going through four a day at the moment.

sharon young said...

My DH confirms Janet's DH's ID for the butterfly and he's very jealous of your flock of long tailed tits, he'd love to get them on our garden, we get plenty of others but not those yet.
Great photo of the bee, I haven't managed a good one yet.

Maureen said...

Love those longtailed tits, I didn't see any this year in our garden which was strange as they usually come when the snow is on the ground.

BT said...

How wonderful to have the long tailed tits on the fat balls. We have a small flock here but they just fly from tree to tree and ignore our bird food.

Your photo of the blackbird is just wonderful. I love it. You just caught her right. Have a good meeting won't you.