Our Garden....#2

What a lovely day to sit around the garden today. Jane is away to Newcastle with friends so I've pottered around cutting the grass and taking some pics...

 Above - This is our 'no mow' bit of lawn, its full of Cats Ear, Clover, Daisies and some Bugle.

This Red tailed Bumblebee is doing a good job pollinating the flowers.

Above - Our hedge. We planted this from odds and sods and its coming along well. It has held Barred Warbler in the past ( have I mentioned that before?)

Above - This is the far end of the hedge in the other shot. Just planted a year ago, the dog roses are flowering for the first time this summer.

Above - The hebe is covered in bumblers, including Early Bumblebee ( above), Tree Bumblebee, White and Buff tailed Bumblebees and Common Carder Bee.

But a real exciting bit happened as I was cutting the grass. This Sparrowhawk dived through my neighbours shrubs and emerged witha juvvy Starling to eat on the lawn!

I was out of its line of sight behind the sweet peas so I dashed inside, grabbed the camera and stalked carefully back to get some shots before it flew off, taking its meal with it. Lovely!

Garden friends...

Another lovely day to sit around the garden bumping into some of our local wildlife...

This Tree Bumblebee looked about done for, lying moribund on the grass, until i remembered a Twitter tip. I mixed up a little sugar solution and Jane offered it on a tea spoon. It soon perked up and drank a bit. You can see its long tongue taking it in. At this time of year bees can become exhausted carrying pollen back to the hives and often just collapse. This was just enough to get him up and off. After a few dodgy drunk looking spiral flights, off he went.

Eating breakfast outside we were soon joined by this male Blackbird. He has been with us since January at least. He will now even snatch a crumb from our hand but he prefers it left on a hard surface. He and his female are now feeding fledged second brood young ones around the gardens...He must be healthy, because he clears up around the moth trap early in the morning! Plenty of food for the family here...

While pottering about a few garden flowers were photographed, both domestic and wild -

A rose, 2 quid from Wilko's...not bad.

A 2 mtr square patch of un-mown lawn looks like this now - 

Cats-ear

And finally a pair of pink Elephants from last nights moth trap...

Elephant Hawk-moth and Small Elephant Hawk-moth