hazel delights

Just thought I would share these photo's of the hazel in our garden, taken late afternoon today.

nest boxes

It is that time of year again when our nest boxes need to be emptied. We had a great success this year only one of our boxes wasn't used at all and another was abandoned when wasps decided to nest in it instead.

The tits abandoned this nest box when the wasps took over, but at least it provided a nesting place for some form of wildlife even if it wasn't what I would have chosen.

this one was successfully used by a family of great tits

And this by a house sparrow family

and again this one was used by house sparrows. I love all the feathers in this one!

They have now all been emptied and returned to their positions ready for next spring!

longtailed tit

Just one of a flock of long tailed tits that were flying through our garden today

Set for hottest October day ever recorded

So as we are enjoying this fantastic mini heat wave I thought I would show you a few garden views of today,
Our sunrise,

A surprise flower, I didn't plant an evening primrose here it just appeared, and has been flowering for a good month or so!

these chamomile are giving us a wonderful show this year.

Unseasonal -Foxgloves in flower - in October!

Morning cobweb distractions

With the sun burning through the mist this morning it revealed some of natures very own sparkling jewels

#wildlifewednesday

Our Sunset Tonight

Visitors

Two of our special garden visitors today.
Firstly we had a surprise visitor, Siskins don't normally visit our feeders until the winter, in fact I can't ever remember seeing one in our garden in August before!!!!

The second visitor is this speckled wood butterfly, I have seen plenty on the lane when walking our dog, but this is the first one this summer that I have seen stopping in the garden

amazing light tonight

Looked outside and I just had to grab my camera.

and turn to face the other way...

A rare visitor

Last year we only caught one glimpse of a hummingbird hawk moth Macroglossum stellatarum in our garden. This year, though I have seen one at least 5 times and each time it has been hovering around the lavender. Most of my sightings have been in the evening when the light hasn't been good for photography, but today it arrived in the morning with the sun shining, so I managed to get these photo's!!!

Whatever the weather these babies need feeding!!!

So it is typical bank holiday weather today, it has been raining constantly since I woke this morning, which has prevented us from getting out in the garden, but not stopped the birds.

We have a garden packed full of baby birds some such as the trees sparrows and great tits have learnt how to get the seed from the feeders now and most are now feeding independently, but our blue tit family only emerged from the nest box a couple of days ago and are still demanding their food.

You aren't my baby

 At times it can get rather chaotic out there!!!!

I had to throw in this photo of a totally drenched and bedraggled pheasant, definitely not looking magnificent today!!!

My Spring Garden

We have company

The cattle are back on the common, that means less walks for me across there now for the summer! On the bright side, they do graze it down quite well!!!!

And do you see those red poppies by the gate? This is the first year they have flowered, I had 2 or 3 summers with just the leaves, but this year.....

wild garlic

A newt in our garden

Not a great photo, I know, but we found this newt taking refuge on a mound of soil under some plastic sheeting, had to take a photo of it before we covered it up again, soil will just have to wait a while.