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…

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…

New neighbours

After a frantic breeding season my red mason bees have now disappeared from the garden. Inside the bee box their larvae are concealed safe inside the nest chambers to await the arrival of next spring when they will emerge as adults and begin the cycle all over again. In their place another species of bees…

A few of my favourite things…

The housework can wait when there’s just too many lovely distractions in the garden. —Photographs copyright of Claire Stott/Grey Feather Photography © 2022www.greyfeatherphotography.com If you like what you see, you can follow me on Facebook or Instagram (@greyfeatherphotography) to see my latest photographs. Click the ‘follow’ button on the bottom to subscribe to my blog. Thanks for reading!

A buzz in the garden

It’s been a couple of months now since we moved into our new home, and perhaps my favourite thing about this place is the garden. If the sun is shining chances are you will find me outside tending to the flowers or poised with camera in hand in search of tiny creatures. Having only had…

Sighting: Red Mason Bee

One of the earliest bees to emerge into a British spring, the red mason bee is arguably one of the most striking of the solitary bees with a large jaws and a hairy gingery/red body. Mason bees are named for their habit of nesting in cavities in walls and masonry, perhaps will we see a…

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…

Sighting: Golden Ringed Dragonfly

Having spent some 6 years now living beside the harbour ‘gap’ in Aberystwyth I feel I have come to know the area and it’s inhabitants rather well. Even so there is still the occasional new sighting to surprise me. Whilst the delicate damselflies are a relatively common sight during the heat of the summer I…

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…

Sighting: Plasterer bee

Most of my time spend photographing is done close to home and exploring the area in and around ‘the gap’. Whilst there is a sense of familiarity here in photographing the same creatures and the same cycles of life each season, there are also occasionally a new sighting, piece of behaviour or encounter to capture…

Ladybird invasion

With the most recent storm bringing harsh winds and torrential downpours my bee garden has now well and truly been decimated, reduced to a few withered and wind battered sticks! Ah well, better luck next year! A few months ago however it was quite the miniature jungle and during a particularly sunny spell in June,…