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…

A focus on frost

The UK is currently in the midst of winter, and as a cold front descends from the north temperatures have barely risen above freezing for days, dropping as low as minus 6 degrees celsius overnight here in our little welsh village. Brrr! A brief flurry of snow fell a few days ago and since then…

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 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…

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,…

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…

Fleeting

For as long as I can remember I had wanted to work with animals, so when the opportunity arose a few months ago to do just this I couldn’t quite believe my luck, although the animals in questions were somewhat smaller than those I might have imagined. Tree nymph or paper kite butterflies As I…

2019 Memorable Moments

After a hectic week at work I finally have some time to put my feet up and reflect on the previous 12 months. My photography took a somewhat new direction last year, and whilst birds were still been high on the agenda, a new love for macro photography proved to be a great learning curve…

Autumn invasion

Autumn is the time of year when all things 8 legged invade our gardens and appear in our homes, seeking out mates and warm places to spend the impending winter. Fear of spiders is irrational and actually quite ridiculous since none of the spiders found in the UK can do you any real harm but…

Bee happy

With a storm raging outside and rattling the windows what better time to catch up on some editing and look back at some of my photographs captured back in the warmth and calm of summer. Having invested in a prime macro lens earlier in the year much of my attention since has been focused on…