Sunday Safari – A time to catch up on some photos

Sunday Safari – A time to catch up on some photos

I’ve discovered yet more images that I haven’t touched… Too many for me to post right now, and I suspect will end up being completely forgotten very quickly. However, here we go:

We’ll start with some birds shots that I’ve managed to forget to post for the past few weeks, the first two are of a Juvenile Dunnock which hadn’t noticed me stood only a few metres away… As you can tell it’s very well camouflaged!
Excuse the mess, the upper tier is still a work in progress!

And here’s Mr Bullfinch, I had my macro lens in so the image isn’t amazing but it’s a record shot none-the-less. At one point they were visiting very frequently, every 30 minutes however their visits seem to be less often now and I assume either their babies have fledged or their nests were unsuccessful. I *think* I might’ve seen a baby earlier this week; I assumed it was a female and didn’t look very closely until I noticed it struggling to get into the globe feeder and fluttering around. Normally the Bullfinches are straight in there and don’t tend to hang around or flutter around the garden.

Our garden is very much a spring/summer garden for the birds… We don’t have any birds nesting in the garden, but we do have plenty nesting in the hedges around us, as a result we get many birds during the breeding season and especially once the birds have fledged it becomes a nursery for juveniles. There are so many house sparrows that I cannot count them, I believe we’ve had two separate Blue Tit broods, as well as Great Tits and for the first time I’ve seen some fledged Coal Tits too – normally the adults disappear and I never see any youngsters. I’m having to refill the feeders on a daily basis as they’re getting through so much when normally I’d expect to fill them a couple of times a week; sometimes even once a week.

I was taking shots of the new border and was surrounded by the tall plants; Asters, Aconitum and such so the birds weren’t taking a great deal of notice nor I them… So they began to come down to feed:

How many Sparrow juveniles can you fit in the feeder at once?

Blue Tit juveniles in the globe feeder and a Great Tit juvenile on the sunflower heart feeder.

I happened to take some shots of a bird in the Willow and was surprised to see it was a Chaffinch! Normally I only get them in winter when they’re desperate for food… Then today when I popped outside I heard a song which for the past couple of weeks I’d assumed was a Greenfinch, yet every time I heard it I was a bit confused because it doesn’t quite sound right but I knew for certain it wasn’t a Goldfinch or Bullfinch… Then today it dawned on me that it’s the Chaffinch. Hopefully it will stick around and spread the word that there’s plenty of food here! It isn’t a good shot again but I’m happy just to have a Chaffinch visiting.

Look what I found! It’s an almond! This is the first year I’ve seen one, there are a few more but I believe the almonds on the Dwarf Russian Almond are inedible??

I’ve seen a few of these around, I assume some sort of Bee or Wasp

The aconitum ‘sparks variety’ is coming into bloom, it will have to be moved next year

The strange Dill-come-Angelica is going to seed… A strange plant with the blooms of Dill, yet the leaves of Angelica… Oh well, the Bees, Wasps and other insects loved it.

The feverfew backed by Geranium really makes a nice statement. I hope to see some seedlings from the feverfew this year, last year it was tiny so I’m very pleased to see it has done so well this year. I’d love to have enough plants to cut them for vases.

I’m also thrilled with the Veronica this year, I got them quite late on in the season last year and they were reduced, they’ve done really well and I’ve cut some blooms to have in a vase with Sweet Peas and Geraniums; photos to follow next week sometime.

Coreopsis ‘moonbeam’ is in a huge pot, but I think I’ll move it soon because I think the pot gets too dry.

I have a few Lavenders on the tier that I planted last year, they’re all in bloom now with one in particular having at least trebled in size.

Ragwort has sown itself in the new border and is making an attempt to catch up with the Aster which is taller than me!

And my flat-topped Aster is coming into bloom; it’s quite worrying because it isn’t supposed to bloom until August???

The Veronicastrum virginicum ‘fascination’ that I planted on the upper tier is blooming, I have also moved some of the Aster above onto the tier

Shasta Daisies are teasing me…. I hope they open today!

Now for a few of the blooms in the front garden…
I bought this little Astilbe reduced last year when it was looking rather dead… I’m glad to see it’s come up, although I really need to get some of the larger varieties as it seems they do quite well in our shady front garden.

Our Hydrangea is a bit weird… Some are pinky others purple… It’s also far behind our neighbour’s Hydrangea which is in full bloom, ours is in a shady spot though so it’s often weeks behind.

Centaurea is doing very well this year, it always grows quite leggy though, does anyone know how I can stop this? The crown of the plant always ends up bare because the branches all splay to the sides…

Geranium Wargrave Pink still has masses of blooms, I will chop it back soon so it gets nice fresh growth.

One of the unknown roses is a little *too* pink for me, but for now they can stay until concentrate more on the garden.

One of my pots with a self-seeded Campanula and some Dianthus plugs sits by the front door.

I’ll stop there because otherwise this post will go on for an eternity.



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