To bee or not to bee?

Nature is full of ingenious solutions to the problem of staying alive. This harmless little hoverfly species Volucella bombylans has chosen the art of mimicry, disguising itself in a bumblebee’s warning stripes to deter predators. — Photographs copyright of Claire Stott/Grey Feather Photography © 2023www.greyfeatherphotography.com If you like what you see, you can follow me…

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…

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: 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,…

Beebombs

At the start of lockdown some months ago, finding myself with a lot more free time on my hands (how I long for that now!) I finally got around to planting my ‘beebombs’. Beebombs are wildflower seedballs designed to be scattered on open ground or in gardens to replicate a wildflower meadow. With such habitats…

Metamorphosis

Is has now been some 4 months since I left work the Butterfly House, although it now feels a lifetime ago. Daily life has changed changed considerably and unexpectedly for all of us since then in the wake of the devastating coronavirus pandemic. Despite the strange and uncertain times we have found ourselves in, life…

Celebrating solitary bees

Aberystwyth Castle grounds are always one of my favourite places to visit for their abundance in bird life as well as the vibrant flowers which adorn it’s borders and decorative beds. As mentioned in my previous blog, there is a noticeable lack of cultivated flowers this year as the annuals have not yet been replaced…