Mist and droplets

This morning we woke to a very misty scene outside, but the sun was always promising to break through.

and gradually through the morning the vista improved.

leaving beautiful webs in it's wake.

Even once the mist had finally disappeared the water droplets remained on the leaves and petals

until the sun did it's job leaving just those plant's in the shade with reminders of the beautiful misty start to the day.

Up close!

I have been making the most of this glorious weather, by doing a bit of tidying up in our back yard! As usual though I was easily distracted, this time it was a cheeky coal tit that was watching me from the hedge, so there I was watching it for a good few minutes thinking if I go inside for my camera it will fly away, so I eventually turned away from it to see on the ground right next to my feet as in centimetres away a tiny goldfinch, I guess it had flown into a window and was slightly stunned as it made no effort to fly away, just hopped around pecking at the seeds under the feeders. When I realised it wasn't going anywhere I decided to get my camera, I was so pleased that it stayed long enough for me to get these photo's before it finally flew off.

goldfinch

I then decided to hang around to see if my cheeky coal tit would make another appearance, it didn't disappoint.

coal tit

Shadows and reflections

One of the wonderful things about this time of the year is the strength of the sun producing fantastic shadows.
Here are just a few of the ones seen from my garden today.

Small tortoishell

Speckled Wood

Red Admiral

Red Admiral

As well as the shadows when the wind dropped we also had brilliantly clear reflections in the puddles on the track , just by our gate.

An invasion of gulls

The farmer spent all day yesterday muck spreading his field on the other side of the common - why do they always muck spread on nice sunny Sundays? any way today the gulls can't keep away from one patch in particular!

as seen with the eye

zooming in, I know it looks as though they are perched in the trees but it is only the crows on the branches, probably wondering where all these gulls came from!

Almost inevitable really

As soon as I published my last post I knew that I would regret it, having only seen the odd swallow and house martin in the skies for the last week, suddenly tonight we had this!
There must have been thousands of flies up there!

Gone but not forgotten

May be there are still a few flying around, but I haven't seen the swallows in these numbers for a week or so now.

After all the wet and windy weather we have had over the last couple of days I hope these have survived and will return again next year

Common darter

Late summer is when I would expect to see the dragonflies settle on our garden fence, but this is the first time I have spotted one this year. Every time I got too close it would fly off and then settle onto a different post so I spent some time chasing this darter along our fence this afternoon.