Computer still working, which is a surprise as I fixed it. Not sure what will be on offer but the Glen seems to be coming alive with wild flowers, so that’s how I will start the blog off.
The first image is of just a farmers field showing off the diversity of organic, natural fields. The Daises and Buttercups are in abundance and for some reason remind me of Julie Andrews singing “The Hills Are Alive” in the Sound of Music.
One thing the heathland on our daily walk is full of are Orchids, this one is a Spotted Heath Orchid. Now most of you will know that normally these are pale pink but in Glen Fender a vast majority of them are this deeper near purple colour. Though the same plant as the pink one it is believed but not proven that it might be a hybrid, mixed with the Northern Spotted Orchid. On todays walk we must have seen well over 50 of them.
Had the moth trap out last night as it was forecast to be dry, only caught four moths, could not understand why only four as we had had a warm sunny day before . Then I looked at my out door minimum / maximum thermometer and saw why, can you believe three days away from the longest day and the temperature last night went down to FOUR degrees Celsius.
Now I know this is a member of the Hawk Moth family, but being new to identifying them I am not sure which. It could be a Striped Hawk Moth, but that has a but that has a different thorax, or it could be a Eyed hawk Moth which has the pink hindwing, but my species does not have the eyes on that pink? So I shall have to send the shot off to an expert and come back to you with what type it is.
We have many different coloured Aquilegia in the garden, pink, white, interbred between the two, but by far the best of all of them are these elegant yellow ones. I think one of the main things it has going for it is the fact that it hangs at this angle allowing you to see the beauty of it where the other colours just hang down and you have to falsely lift them and prop them up in order to get a decent shot of them. One thing about the whole family is that the bees really love them, especially Bumble Bees.
An important day on the calendar today, yes it is Fathers Day here in the U.K. As usual my two “boys” didn’t forget and one gave me a very generous Amazon gift card (which 2/3rds I have spent) for me to buy some much needed fishing gear. The other gave me a photographers light box, which is exactly what it says on the tin. A polycarbonate box with a ring of LED lights in the top, to enable me to shoot all sorts of different things with 6 different coloured backgrounds. Hopefully it will be helpful to photograph my moths in it, but by way of an experiment I took shots of the different backdrops using this yellow rose as a tester & the black background seemed to suit the shot best.
As way of a added bonus today I have added the two shots below. Whilst having a “happy Fathers Day chat with one of my sons at 8.30 at night, look what strolled into the garden. The Hybrid Wildcat that we had only seen on the trail camera , very alert and aware that I had grabbed the camera, it stayed just long enough for me to grab some shots. I and my son on the other end of the phone got really excited and as soon as we had finished chatting I had to send him then shots. As much as I loved the presents and cards from my boys, this was a moment I shall never forget. Have sent the shots off to the study group as well.
The eyes were piercing and it spent most of the time just staring at me.
As the Pyracanthia comes into flower, so the Bees and wasps descend on it in their drones, while photographing this Buff Tailed Bumble Bee there must have been ten others in the vicinity of the hedge row. The noise is incredible if you are sitting in that part of the garden that is all you can hear, I presume they are so noisy because of the size of those little wings that have to propel that big fat body around, they certainly seem out of proportion to the body.
I started off this blog with a field of Buttercups and Daisies and have walked in our garden and discovered by the pond these Buttercups that I think are on steroids. Though I must admit they look terrific when & I repeat when, the sunshine’s on them . It is a surprise to me that anything is still alive in the garden as overnight at some point the temperature went down to exactly zero C, even for us that sort of temperature, for the middle of June is a bit extreme.
Found this unusual Beetle on the garage door, it looks like it has no head, was not aware about what it was as not really up on my Beetles ( only the Liverpool Fab Four, I know they are spelt differently ) . So asked on a forum and soon got the answer, which when you look at it the name is obvious, it’s a Rhinoceros Beetle. Apparently fairly rare this far North, guess that is another sign of climate change, species are moving further North.
Well this certainly has been a second half of the month I will never forget. Firstly we had never seen a Wildcat apart from on the trail camera and it turns up in daylight and well enough for me to get some great shots of it. Now tonight at 7.30 I looked out the lounge window at our squirrel box and thought ” That’s not a squirrel” only to find it was a Pine Martin. The wife grabbed my camera for me and luckily I had my long lens on and though through double glazing and in pouring rain, managed these half decent shots of it. Now in the 17 odd years we have been here we caught a very fast glimpse of one running over the compost heaps, no photo. This one stayed long enough to eat all the peanuts before disappearing. I had already taken the shot of the day a family of 4 baby Goldfinches being fed by their parent , so I guess I will hope they will be back tomorrow and you can see it then.
Much of Glen Fender is moorland with drainage from fields producing boggy areas where all sorts of plants grow, which is why the Glen has such a diverse and rare habitat. But one plant that is very prevalent throughout is the one above Cotton Grass. This photo is one of a plant in my garden pond, though I never introduced it to the pond it has arrived and is thriving, which I am not unhappy about as it adds a natural looking feel to the pond, along with the Buttercups and Spotted Heath Orchid I showed you a shot of earlier in the blog. Not so keen when it sheds it’s seeds and covers the pond, but I will put up with it .
Our ambition is for the very top of our garden to just grow wild, making it a haven for insects of all kinds. To start that process off we did as all the experts tell you to do, start of by introducing Rattle to the grass, over two years we have more than introduced it, we have created a mini meadow of hundreds of Rattle plants. They are an attractive plant anyway and when they have flowered and dry out the seeds in the flower heads do literally rattle and with a wee shake of them around the area do set very easily and most importantly survive our harsh winter conditions. With this shot I was experimenting with taking a shot as low as I could and getting that bokeh effect going through the plants, not sure it worked but I liked the effect.
The trouble (well it is not really a trouble) with this time of the year is that all the plants seem to be at their best, so therefore I have got to try and squeeze as many into the blog as possible and if you prefer my bird and animal shots you may find this a bit boring. But as you can see above I am sorry but it is another plant. This one is slowly taking over one of the flower beds but is a very attractive plant. My expert is not in at present but I think it is a late flowering member of the Primula family and the pendulum flowers are on a stem up to a foot long, very sturdy ( they have withstood the gale force winds we had a couple of days ago) and thick. a great addition to the garden.
Went trout fishing for a couple of hours this afternoon, really hot and sunny (you heard correct) so didn’t hold out much luck in catching anything, so took the camera along as well. The fishing was as hard as I expected, managed to catch one Rainbow, which is already cooked and prepared to drop into my neighbour tomorrow for his supper. There were an awful lot of Common Blue Damselfly around and managed to catch a few good shots including the one above. With such an abundance around the water I am always surprised that you very seldom see the trout take them and I have often tried a imitation one on my fly rod, but never managed to catch one on them either..
Two for the price of one again, The first shot was not far short of becoming today’s shot as I took this sunset at 1040 last night, we were on our way to bed and it was so bright and filled all the west facing windows with a bright orange glow.
Look at the next shot, who wouldn’t want this beautiful looking plant in their garden, the detail in the petals, the hint of green and pink coming out from it’s centre, the sheer size of the flower head, a gardeners delight. But it is a plant I found on growing on the roadside down the road from us when I was out early this morning looking for Hares. It is Cow Parsnip a type of Hogweed. On researching it ( this blog is not just put together you know ) , turns out Hogweed got it’s name because it was gathered and used as food for pigs, it also states that the young stems are fairly pleasant to eat and taste a bit like asparagus, had to try it, was okay but not to sure about the asparagus taste.
Lets light a candle and celebrate, no not the football. Just the fact that I have achieved my halfway mark in this photo challenge, 6 at times testing months on trying to find a different subject everyday. Sometimes I so desperately wanted to bring you a shot of something I had photographed before but that was superior to the first one, hence on occasions the doubling up or trebling up of shots as I just wanted you to see it . But I have achieved it so far, just another 6 months to find subjects, I think I will be fine for a couple of months as new things are arriving in the garden and nature wise but in the barren months between lovely Autumn colours and Winter may be a problem. My life saver maybe if travel restrictions are lifted and we can get across to New York to visit our other son , though that is not very much part of the Cairngorms National Park , we all need a break.
Thank you all that have followed me through this challenge, your comments have been an encouragement, let us hope I can keep going as I am loving it.