April 2102 - Bublebee in garden

Thursday 19th: Amidst all the rain that we've been having over the past couple of weeks, today was relatively dry which was all that was required for the Bumblebees to grab some much-needed pollen. These remarkable photos by Melanie show a Bumblebee in action on a flower. What's more remarkable is the close-up of the Bee with its proboscis extended, ready to connect with the flower stamen. As you can imagine, Bees fly very fast! So for Mel to grab this image of the Bee in flight approaching the flower is all the more remarkable!

These photos were taken with a compact Samsung Digimax S500.

February 2012 - Last visit by the Grey Wagtail

Saturday 25th: With the snow now gone, Spring is breaking-out and temperatures have risen. Today the Grey Wagtail was in the garden for much of the time, just as she was yesterday and most every day before that going back to the beginning of this month. Melanie had recently gained the confidence of the Wagtail and actually had her coming into the kitchen for live mealworms, as the photo below shows! But though we didn't know it at the time (I'm writing this in April), Saturday 25th was to be the last we we saw the Grey Wagtail.

Having been here, feeding on live mealworms and learning from other birds in the garden, danger calls and jostling with Blackbirds and House Sparrows for mealworms for much of the winter; late November, most of December and just about all of February, she has (it seems) migrated away to an area where she will mate and raise a brood of chicks. It's too much to hope that she comes back next winter, but the Wren has kept coming back each winter and the going off in the Spring for three seasons now. But here's hoping...we wish you well Young Grey Wagtail!