Early Insects

Another day and a brief window of sunshine meant another trip down to the local lakeside to admire the snowdrops before they disappear with the advance of Spring. I took the macro lens for it’s first outing of the year in the hope of finding some early bees and pollinators. Fortunately I wasn’t disappointed and…

Impatiently waiting for Spring

The emergence of the snowdrops must certainly one of the seasonal highlights from the natural world. Each year the sight of these delicate yet hardy flowers dotting the countryside reminds me that the warm and welcome days of Spring are just around the corner. It doesn’t feel much like that at the moment, as temperatures…

2022 Highlights – The ‘Bee Garden’

As we wave goodbye to another year and welcome in 2023, it’s the time to look back once again at my own personal highlights from the last twelve months. Top of this list just had to be the success of my ‘bee garden’, a small patch of garden which I transformed into a mini wildflower…

Sighting: White Banded Digger Bee

Last week I took a long overdue holiday to visit family on the tiny island of Malta in the Medditeranean. Whilst much of the trip was spent enjoying quality time together (and taking lots of photos of my gorgeous nephew) I was still always ready to capture some of the natural beauty to be found…

Summer scorcher

The Botanic Gardens of Wales down in Carmarthen has become one of my favourite places for a day out. For a photographer there is always something new to discover here and the ever changing landscape of flowers never fails to disappoint and delight. My most recent visit was back in July, which also happened to…

Kaiya in bluebells

The beauty of bluebells is spectacular, yet sadly all too fleeting. Keen to make the most of their brief flowering season, I couldn’t resist heading back to the lake side to snap a few photos of dog Kaiya in the remaining blooms. —All photographs copyright of Claire Stott/Grey Feather Photography © 2022www.greyfeatherphotography.com If you like…

Bluebell season

‘How the merry bluebell rings, To the mosses underneath…’– Alfred Lord Tennyson The UK is home to almost half the world’s population of english or native bluebells (Hyacinthoides non-scripta). Synonymous with ancient british woodlands, these iconic flowers are at their most spectacular in spring, usually flowering from mid April onwards. Nothing says spring quite like…

Botanic Gardens of Wales revisited

Our first visit to the Botanic Gardens of Wales was at the end of last summer, when the gardens were bursting with vivid colour and buzzing with life. Revisiting the gardens again earlier this month provided a great opportunity to observe how these gardens change throughout the seasons. In contrast to our previous visit the…

Days Out: National Botanic Garden of Wales

Today we headed south down to Carmarthen to visit the National Botanic Garden of Wales. This 500 acre site is dedicated to conservation and home to an impressive collection of approximately 8000 different species of flowers and plants from the UK and around the world. Despite not feeling my best, a day immersing myself in…

Poison paradise

After an absolutely dismal May which was quite literally a wash out, it’s nice to see the return of sunny skies here in Aberystwyth. Thanks in part to all that rain, and the absence so far of the council mowers the wild areas around the harbour have sprung into life providing a habitat for all…

If you go down to the woods today…

With sunny skies and a few hours to spare between shifts at work on Friday, it was the perfect opportunity to hunt for bluebells in the grounds of Nanteos Mansion. Nestled between two small nature reserves, Old Warren Hill & Coed Penglanowen their ancient woodlands provide the perfect unspoiled habitat for numerous species including these…

In search of snowdrops

As winter begins to make way for spring I have been eager to find a good spot to photograph snowdrops, before they wilt and wither to be replaced by more fair-weather flowers. All I have found so far is a few underwhelming isolated clumps here and there on my daily walks, not quite the carpet…