Tuesday 9 August 2011

Garden Insects


I’ve taken some short movies of the garden using my phone, so don’t expect anything spectacular…

The aim was to show the number of insects buzzing around the Aster, there are often butterflies too but I tend to scare them away, especially if I’m standing and moving. For flutters you’re best remaining very still and having patience; I love how Bees just don’t seem to care, they’re on a mission and nothing will stop them getting their nectar/pollen.

Sadly it isn’t translating too well, as the video is quite small so you can’t really see them buzzing around. Also I find the phone tends to blow out the colours a bit; i.e. high contrast and saturation… Blacks are very black and colours are very strong.




This one shows Hoverflies enjoying some California Poppy blooms


I’m trying to figure out how to make it automatically play in HD, however when you click play you will then see a 360p pop up on the bottom bar, if you click the little arrow next to it you can then switch to HD instead should you fancy seeing the videos in better quality.

My heart goes out to the victims of the current looting around the UK, especially to one guy who'd been punched or attacked, was on the floor and then looters came to 'help' him. Instead they mugged him. It still makes me cry just thinking about it; so horrendous to watch.

2011 Liz.
All rights reserved. Content created by Liz for Gwirrel’s Garden.

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

I enjoyed your movies of the buzzing bees, but the You Tube movies that were on deck after yours were really off the wall. I wonder if there is anyway to control this so Throwing Babies is not the next movie to play.

Liz said...

Hi GWGT,

I'm not sure if there's anything I can do... Maybe if I tage the video it'll then know it's a gardening vid and come up with other, similar ones; not throwing babies!

haha, that's crazy!

Cheryl said...

Hi Liz,

Well done. I enjoyed seeing the bees buzzing around. It is good to see so many....
Love those californian poppies, mine seem to have disappeared this year.

I was pleased to read that your area is more like a village and escaped the violence and destruction of the last few nights.
Perhaps there is something to learn from that.......why it happens in certain areas and not others.

easygardener said...

This year seems to be a good one for insects. Last year I hardly saw a butterfly in the garden and hoverflies were scarce too. This year there are insects galore all over the garden.

Liz said...

Hi Cheryl,

These are not the Californian poppies I'd been hoping for - I think this managed to survive the winter?! I'd sown some 'champagne and roses' ones, and did see some seedlings but then... Nothing. Probably the early droughts, but at least I do have some because the Hoverflies always seem to love them.

Indeed, I think something can be learned from the fact that pretty much most of Yorkshire saw no problems. Leeds only had a small amount but that may have been a rumour. I know northerners are often thought of at hooligans, but that's far from the truth, you can walk the streets and say hello or talk to anyone. I often have conversations with random people, even people with 'scary' dogs will smile and say hello.
A totally different atmosphere in Sheffield compared to similar cities like Manchester. I disliked Manchester so much that in my final year at uni I chose to stay in Sheffield and commute across instead.

Liz said...

Hi EG,

This year has been amazing; I'm just so incredibly happy every time I venture out into the garden and can watch the wildlife loving the plants.
At the moment I spend most of my days sat at the kitchen table attempting to write my dissertation and am easy distracted by the Butterflies - especially as the Gatekeepers seem to want to get in the house??! - so I give myself short breaks as I attempt to hunt the flutters. I had my first Small Copper of the year yesterday (photos to follow) and I'm so thrilled we have them again. Oh and I also saw my first Ringlets in the garden! yay.

Janet/Plantaliscious said...

"The plants are alive...with the sounds of insects..." Well, you get the gist. Lots of very happy little pollinators there.

We have family in Leeds and Sheffield, and were grateful that there was no trouble to speak of there. I am so sad, angry, disappointed, confused by the rioting and all the post-riot blaming that I've stopped reading about it, let alone watching it. I can't really see how making a bunch of people homeless is going to help matters either.

Sorry yo hated Macnhester, I loved it there and had a trouble free three years, but there again, that was the early eighties, pre trams etc. Agree about the friendliness of northerners, you have to work much harder to get a similar reaction down south, though the village is pretty good.