caterpillars

This year My garden has been overrun with greater and lesser cabbage white butterfly caterpillars, from what I can tell.
Apparently they like broccoli as much as I do!
It's not a problem though. I mean don't get me wrong I was looking forward to eating my home grown broccoli but, well, I do love butterflies so I guess I surrender under their onslaught.

As I have sacrafised my veg patch to these veratius eaters they have in turn been picked off by wasps. which is a shame because I hate wasps but I can't spend all my time in the garden running around like a lunatic with a fly swatter shouting ~HAVE AT IT YOU B#*^%RDS!~ because the neighbours will complain... again.

I was getting worried these last few years as I haven't seen too many butterflies but August has been chocked full of them so I'm going to calm down on my claims that humanity is ruining the planet (only a bit though).

I guess I can loose a few crops in the hopes of having another year that could be full of the beautiful and eratic flight of butterflies through summer skys.

 

Sparrows

For years I have hardly seen any sparrows but yesterday in the garden there were loads!
I believe they were house Sparrows and they appear to love dried meal worms!

I put the pictures together to make a slide show.

They move so quickly. I think a lot of them are blurred but it still makes a good sequence.

Swallowtail Butterfly

After a 5 hour (one way) trip and a few days in Norflok I finally found what I was looking for.

Swallowtail Butterflies!  They're hard to find, even if you do know where they might be.

Being butterflies they are cold blooded and so need the sun to warm up.

They are well worth looking for though.

A link to the BBC website with a short clip on the English Swallowtail Butterfly

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p0087htt

Brimham Rocks

 If you are in the area and have a day to spare why not go to Brimham Rocks.
I loved it when I was a kid and still do now. Probably because it looks like a place you could imagine monster living.

The natural rock formations look so odd. Like a Giant has been stacking stones.
If you do go climbing though, be care full. just because one side of a rock is at ground level doesn't mean the other side is.

link

http://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/brimham-rocks/

Waxwings

 I can't be sure but I'm pretty sure these are Waxwings. I've never seen them in the north east of England and it was a windy day so maybe they were blown off course.

Actually that picture would make a nice painting with some creative sky based changes... where's my Acrylics  :)

Flatts lane

A walk in the woods and bird song. Add a little sun, a light breeze and you can have a relaxing moment to your self.

That is if you can get to some woods... and it's sunny... and there aren't people walking around shouting in a way that suggests a nice soothing lobotomy may be in order.

Just in case, here is a picture with bird song from Flatts Lane woods in the North East of England (Teesside area).




A walk in the woods and bird song. Add a little sun, a light breeze and you can have a relaxing moment to your self.

That is if you can get to some woods... and it's sunny... and there aren't people walking around shouting in a way that suggests a nice soothing lobotomy may be in order.

Just in case, here is a picture with bird song from Flatts Lane woods in the North East of England (Teesside area).




A walk in the woods and bird song. Add a little sun, a light breeze and you can have a relaxing moment to your self.

That is if you can get to some woods... and it's sunny... and there aren't people walking around shouting in a way that suggests a nice soothing lobotomy may be in order.

Just in case, here is a picture with bird song from Flatts Lane woods in the North East of England (Teesside area).

Here are just a few of the birds that can be seen in flatts lane woods

  

 

  

 

Tees river - walk & nature

I've just come back from walking down by tees river. On both the Maze Park side the side with the with Portrack marsh.
As it was a great, sunny looking day I grabbed my Nikon Camera along with a 28-300mm zoom and a 10-20mm as well.

It's a nice place to walk. Odd too with so much industry and and the A19 bridge in the background. There are some hill's made of slag (he he slag) which give you an amazing view of the area.

Slide show of the view.

While there I was hoping to get a picture of a Grayling Butterfly but no luck.
I did however get a good, well I hope good at any rate, sequence of shots with a big bird of pray being mobbed by what I think are Crows or Rucks!

I also tried to get some butterfly shots and some of the wading birds.



What I did find interesting was that on the Tees there is a bank with what looked like house martin's nesting there. I'll have to get down there with a bigger lens.

 

If you do go please keep an eye out for Seals in the river because you do see them from time to time.

Location link

http://www.teeswildlife.org/new/mazepark