OK, yes I've been a bit absent the last couple of weeks, and with genuine reasons. Normally I pop on on a Wednesday afternoon after my weekly hospital visit, but with the current climate, I'm at work until the hospital appointments resume, and, working has been variable days and times, which means fitting in shopping and other tasks around my work hours, oh and not forgetting the HS2 road closures, narrow lanes etc as they ramp up their work!
So, I'm well, and I hope you're all well?
Any gossip, please tag it here.....
My local reserve I understand has been overwhelmed with visitors, so I've kept away, because in places, social distancing is not practicable. That's nature, not a fault of the reserve, making some paths very narrow. Long term, it doesn't look like things will get much better quickly, especially as a nearby town is experiencing uncontrolled Covid-19 cases, but not deaths, and if Leicester is anything to go by, if a localised lockdown does occur, then i will be impacted.
Lets hope not.
I've not been too busy with the camera, but here's a few, and some interesting rare visitors included....
A large white butterfly enjoying one of the new lavender plants
A peach of a sunrise....
The next two sunrise pics were taken about two mins apart.
A hiding pond lily
And a blooming nice lily
The newly planted erysimum and lavender plants are filling out nicely,
And the big surprise visitors, long tailed tits, of which at one point, we had at least ten on one feeder!
This pic below, there were two just out of the the image, which I didn't see til afterwards.
One cutely waiting its turn...
This one gave up waiting and found another feeder...
And once the feeding frenzy had died off, this one came back....
Take care and stay safe and I'll hopefully catch up with more posts over the weekend.
STOP PRESS!
More LTT's this afternoon!
A few recent ones from the garden, which as always (well, pretty much always) is a host of activity.
Just a random stone around the edge of the pond....
Though it was a nice breeze, every now and then a gust tried to blow out the water fountain!
A juvenile delinquent robin,
that decided it was going to moon at me!
A hybrid robin/grey squirrel cross!
Juvenile blackbird
And for once, a buzzard overhead. I felt this was going to be the best pic as it was quite close
Until, after nearly dislocating my neck handling the 5D & Sigma 150-600!
A posing great tit
Common Carder bee (feel free to correct me if I've got the species wrong) on the lavender
And a pair of socially distancing dunnocks.....
The left one is definitely juvenile, the right one, possibly adult or recently matured juvenile....
Right lads, lets get lined up!
Still playing catch up!
No LTT's since my last posting, but a few more garden piccies. I may have already posted some of these photos elsewhere on the forum, so my apologies for any duplications.
We have a tail less juvenile robin, that seem so manage to get around without an hassle.
I'm not mooning at you, I just don't have a tail!
We have Italian Arum (I think I've already posted pics somewhere else) down the garden, which is highly poisonous to dogs, cats and children.
Plenty of juvenile robins
And a unique hybrid robin/grey squirrel!
Great tit posing in the apple tree....
A pair of dunnocks socially distancing, one definitely juvenile, the other, possibly recently matured adult.
The juvenile
and the possibly recently matured dunnock if not already fully matured
It's nice to see a lot of regular visits from buzzards here.
The sun is slowing moving southwards in the evening sky, so I'm able to see sunsets again.
Honey bees on the lavender
Right lads, line up
(I'm more than certain I've posted this pic before. but I'll share it again)
These are definitely first time viewing, I've not been on since these were taken....
A post storm sunrise
A newly seen visitor for me, a sparrowhawk (many thanks Alan for the ID). Sadly it had turned around before I grabbed the camera, the light was poor, so a lot of heavy editing took place.
The tail less robing taking aim, err, sorry flight.....
Sneaky cheeky grey squirrel....
Juvenile robin having a feed from fallen pellets on the ground...
Juvenile house sparrow checking to see if its safe to come out to the feeders....
The pond lily's are still looking good.
And a spider, I think its an orb spider, please correct me if I'm wrong....
and its belly view....
Large whites
More honey bees on the lavender
Now I'm not sure on this one, it looks like some kind of hoverfly the way it was flying, but I'm open to sugggestions.
Sorry to have gone on so long, I'll try not to be so long away, I hope no one has fallen asleep.
Lovely set of garden pictures Mike but more than that I admire your stamina in posting sooo many pics in one post. Think I'd loose the willl to live. Well done keep posting
Unknown said:Beautiful photo set Mike, good to see so much wildlife in the garden.
Thank you Hazel.
We are lucky here considering how urban we are, though I sometime wonder if the gardens around here being nice and large (most houses are pre-WWI) if it a haven for an ever shrinking habitat due to houses, HS2 and other forms of construction....
Lynn L said:Poor Mr Robin with no tail, seems to be doing okay anyway and getting about. The feathers will grow back for him. Is that you caught up to date now? Have not fallen asleep, nice photos.
The robin seems to be getting around fine and certainly looks healthy enough.