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…

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…

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…

Let sleeping ducks lie

Several weeks passed before I was able to check on the progress of our three mallard ducklings again, and in this time the trio had transformed almost beyond recognition into fully fledged young ducks. At around two months old they were now able to fly and were nearing their independence. Although still lacking their distinctive…

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…

Fight or flight

It’s now mid May and for many birds the breeding season is now in full swing. Down in the harbour waters of ‘the Gap’ the mallard ducks have already begun to pair up, however as is common among many duck species, males outnumber females quite considerably. For those that are unsuccessful in winning a mate…

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…

Shapeshifters

My final ‘starling watch’ of the season looked like it was going to be a rather underwhelming one despite an almost perfect golden sunset. Numbers were still impressive but certainly down from the previous weeks and the starlings flew unhurriedly, swirling slowly around the pier until they began to drop from the sky into the…

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…