My previous blog covered the wildlife seen in or from our garden in the Highlands of Scotland this year. With it being the height of summer, there continues to be plenty of activity which I thought warranted some further photos being posted.
Butterflies
I like to keep a watch on the different butterflies visiting the buddleia and garden borders that are full of pollen and nectar bearing flowers. The main visitors are red admirals, peacock butterflies and cabbage whites, as well as some infrequent visits of painted lady and comma butterflies. I even managed to rescue a speckled wood butterfly from the garage before it got caught up in the spider webs around the garage window.
A few record photos from the mobile phone:
Roe Deer
One evening the roe deer ventured quite close to the garden, grazing in the rough ground of our neighbour’s land. A little bit of field craft was needed to sneak up into a position to get some clear photos of this pair.
Birdlife
This was a special moment one afternoon, when a sparrowhawk decided to land on our fence and spend about 10-15 minutes just scanning the surrounding area. I managed to quietly open the back door so I could get some photos of this stunning bird. Very exciting!
I even managed to capture it leaving the spot although the high shutter speed combined with very high ISO was still insufficient to get a perfect photo!
It’s late in the season for the house martins and swallows. They will soon be gathering for their migration south. I noticed on a few occasions the house martins congregated under the eves of the house, chattering away. Maybe an indication that I should put up some nesting homes for them next year, although the direction of this wall is not ideal (south west). On a different day the swallows sat on the guttering outside our kitchen window and even started placing mud under the roof on the wall by our back door - although they never continued with the nest building. which was probably the best outcome.
Our wildlife pond is tucked away around the back of the house, and I wonder how much activity goes on unseen (still planning on setting up the trail camera to monitor it). I noticed on this particular day a couple of siskin up in the tree near the pond. After popping off to retrieve the camera I managed to capture a few photos including them dropping down onto lily pads to take a drink! This pair were looking a little ragged, hopefully not reflecting a diseased condition.
The red kites continue to be around with numbers increasing, most likely from fledged young from this year’s nests. On one occasion there were six red kites soaring on the warm air currents and at one point a number of them came really low over our garden as they circled looking for food. Quite an experience looking vertically up with the camera taking loads of photos of these super birds.
I have heard the yellowhammer frequently over this summer, but it was great actually having it singing from one of the trees in the garden early one morning:
It was great seeing these goldfinches feeding on the seeds from the thistles on our neighbour’s rough ground. An abundant larder for them!
Mammals
We’ve seen both bank voles and field voles around the garden. The photos below are cute little field voles which may have been young ones. They were out feeding in broad daylight on that particular day - risking life and limb with the birds of prey that we have around!
Bees and Hover Flies
With all the blooming flowers. there are still plenty of bees and hover flies in action. Always a challenge trying to capture them in flight, in focus and going in the right direction! Ultimately a very low success rate!!
