NF Winged #6

Here's my photo for Nature Footstep Winged collection this week. Its a Comma butterfly and if you look carefully you can see the white mark on its under-wings from which it gets its name. Its easy to identify a Comma, even from a distance, as they have a very distinctive gliding flight - at least they do in my garden. They love to bask in the sheltered sunshine of a large laurel hedge in the back garden either on a leaf or even on the grass - where they are in danger of becoming the plaything of one of the local cats that frequent the same sunny spots.

I made another notebook for my great niece today and used some stamps I bought at Art Stamp Wales in Wrexham last week. I really like these delicate dragonfly images. We do occasionally see them in the garden as the neighbours have a pool. They are usually hunting and zoom around the grass plat at high speed. I caught one on camera a few years ago (2006 to be exact) - a complete fluke - it just landed in front of me. Never happened again! Sadly it wasn't one of the beautiful iridescent blue varieties - its a Common Darter, but just look at those gorgeous transparent wings.

Notebook recipe:
Stamps: - Lavinia Stamps' (our own very local stamp designer!) Bugs & Group of Poppies, Papertrey's Garden Variety, sentimen:t Papertrey's Botanical Silhouettes
Dies: Papertrey's Garden Variety and Picket Fence

Blooms, butterflies and fairies

The Scabious is at its very best at the moment in my garden. I love it and so do the bees, butterflies and hoverflies. Definitely worth propagating for elsewhere in the flowerbeds.

And here is Cicely Mary Barker's Scabious Fairy. I recently read about her work as an artist and was amazed to learn that as well as meticulous research of the plant, choosing and sketching the right child model, and writing the fairy's song, Cicely also designed and made up each fairy costume. Not only that, she unpicked and reused the fabrics for the next fairy once the painting was finished. There are 168 fairies in her 7 fairy books - can you just imagine how much work went into them! The wings of the Scabious Fairy look like they come from the Holly Blue butterflies I chase around the garden with my camera. I haven't managed to catch one this year but here's one I nabbed last year.

I'm linking this post to NF Flowers and NF Winged this week - two birds with one stone, so to speak.

A great buzzing!

This little creature isn't a bee or a wasp but a hoverfly. They like to wear that stripy jumper to keep predators and humans away. And they don't buzz either.... so why did I suddenly become aware of a great buzzing while I was pottering (don't you love to potter!) about the garden last evening. There were more bees than usual on the lavender and the geraniums but that buzzing sounded more like a motorcycle engine than a few bees. Then I looked up and saw what was making that noise - a swarm of thousands of bees excitedly moving across the garden. They were about 15-20 feet up in the air but although I knew they weren't out to get me I was not inclined to move any closer.

Of course now I'm kicking myself for not taking the opportunity to get some photos of something I've never seen 'in real life' before and may never see again. But it was too late anyway - they were over the hedge, into the next garden and on down the hill in a minute or two. I wonder where they finally decided to settle.

Natures Footsteps has a new section for winged creatures so I'm linking there this week. There are already some wonderful photos linked. I love to see what others are capturing in their lenses in other parts of the world.

NF Macro Flowers #4 - Foxgloves

I missed out on Nature Footsteps Macro #3 last week as I just didn't get round to posting my flower photo in time. But it will keep for another day as now June has arrived my colour for #4 this week just has to be Pink. And what could be pinker than Foxgloves.

You have to be quick to snap a bee on Foxgloves - they are in and out of those flower fingers like nobody's business and its a case of guessing when that muffled buzzing means "I'm coming out backwards!" I must have taken about 20 photos trying to catch this busy bee.











The Foxgloves in my garden are at their very best right now and this little group have sown themselves in a perfect spot to catch the evening sun. I'm so lucky to have them as they are wild plants that arrived from who knows where a few years ago and have been seeding themselves here and there ever since. I wonder where they'll appear next year.

White for NF Macro Flowers #2 too

Following on from my white card post below, I thought I'd have white flowers for my NF Macro Flowers #2 post.

This "tempestuous tulip" was past it's best but I love it at this stage - it seems to be letting go after standing to attention for so long.


The beautiful opium poppies always flop around as I never get round to staking them in time. I've got a gorgeous salmon pink one too - but not for this post!

The humble daisy couldn't be more of a contrast to the first two flowers but has a simple beauty of its own. I don't know why people want to dig them out of their lawns - there's nothing prettier than a grass plat sprinkled with daisies.







And my last white beauty is this little flower that covers the overgrown rockery in the front garden. I think its Stitchwort, which is a wild plant, but it certainly likes growing in the garden as it increases every year!



Here's the Stitchwort Fairy's Song from Cicely Mary Barker:

I am brittle-stemmed and slender,
But the grass is my defender.
On the banks where grass is long,
I can stand erect and strong.
All my mass of starry faces
Looking up from wayside places,
From the thick and tangled grass,
Gives you greeting as you pass.

Yes it certainly sounds like my plant - especially that "thick and tangled grass" bit!

Clematis Montana + NF Flowers #1

I was so sad to find that my gorgeous Clematis Montana had died during the winter. I had trained it into a dead pear tree and it was a delight to behold at this time of year - here it is photographed last year. I haven't cut it down yet as there is another clematis growing through it so its going to be a long and fiddly job. Happily I've another smaller Montana in the border and this was the first flower it opened a week or so ago. I took my photo as the sun was going down and love how the flower centre casts a shadow on the petals.

NF Macro has started a weekly meme (no I didn't know what it was either before I googled it!) of flower photos and as I love photographing my garden I'm going to join in. Here is my first offering - as a memory of my beautiful Montana. It will be interesting to see what is blooming around the world each week. Would you like to join in?