Summer memories

I thought I would post a couple of photos which I took in the summer in my Grandma's garden. I completely forgot about these few photos, and it was only until recently that I came across them again. Her garden was really colourful at the time, and the flowers were all out. In the summer sun, it looked brilliant...

As you can see from the photos, the flowers look stunning. They were on an arch at the end of the garden. The bees were loving them too. I think these are the only real decent photos I have taken of the bees. Sometimes, it is only when you look at the photos on the computer that you realise if the photo is any good. I'm not sure of the ID of the flowers, so any help on that would be great.

Its difficult to imagine what her garden looks like now in the autumn, without the bright colours which we saw in the summer. Because of the time of year, not much bird life was to be seen around her garden, except a few Dunnocks and Woodpigeons. Maybe the birds have started to visit her feeders again now that the days are cooler and shorter.

At home, we have really seen a lot of action on the bird feeders recently, and we have had to fill them up very regularly. Hopefully, our camera nestbox will be re-located to the end of the garden soon in case we get any roosting Blue or Great Tits as the weather gets cooler. I may soon talk of a certain visitor to our garden shed recently too.

Slugs and snails by night

A couple of weeks ago, when I went outside to feed our rabbits one evening, soon after it had rained, I noticed a large number of slugs and snails on the ground. I went back inside to get my camera and went back outside again. I took the photos below:

It was quite strange to see such a large group of them, even on a rainy night. It was hard to avoid standing on them as they were all on the garden path. Some of them had some really interesting colours too.

I know this has been the first post in a while, but with the good weather we are promised for the rest of this week, hopefully I can do some garden birdwatching. Around our area, the birds have been feeding fairly consistantly throughout the summer and the feeders haven't really been quiet at all recently. One last note: sorry for not commenting and visiting your blogs as much as usual recently. I will get back to it.

A butterfly first

The butterflies and bees really seem to be doing well in our garden this year. I have seen plenty of them, and a couple of new varieties recently. Last week, I luckily spotted a small butterfly in the garden from the house. I went outside to find that it was a Common Blue, one that we haven't seen in our garden before...

Also seen around was the Gatekeeper butterfly, which we see most years (pictured below). Unfortunately, I didn't take a photo of it with its wings open.

Also seen were Large White and Red Admiral. Large White butterflies appear to be everywhere at the moment. Both butterflies pictured above particularly liked the Marjoram flowers. However, other flowers seem to be appearing everywhere (most of which were not planted by us). I took photos of some of them and they are below. The first photo shows a thistle flower which seems to be particularly popular with the bees.

I'm not sure what the flower in the photo below is but it really looked brilliant in the afternoon sun. In the background, you can see the red-orange flowers of the bean plants.

The Veronica plant seems to be very healthy at the moment. And finally, a quick note on the birds. The feeders have been very busy recently, especially with the tits and sparrows. Today, I saw 10 sparrows feeding on the lawn, which is the most we have ever seen in our garden. Also, Blue, Great, Long-tailed and Coal Tits have been seen frantically feeding. Maybe they are stocking up ready for when they moult? I will leave you with a photo of a pair of Blue Tits which were acrobatically feeding at the end of the garden.

Sunny or not, have a great week :)