Day2Day - week 9

I am surprised and amazed at myself for continuing this day2day project for 9 weeks! It's not something I've been very good at in the past and I certainly never even considered doing any of the Flickr 365 projects. Anyway, a bit of a mixed bunch again this week so enjoy :)

Day 1 - Doris, my neighbours' cat playing hide and seek in my flower border.

Day 2 - One of my stock sites was running a Recycling theme so I wandered out to try my hand at something a bit different. Not sure it's the prettiest picture in the world but it is a familiar sight around the backyards of the UK.

Day 3 - Saw these yesterday on my way home so I took my camera with me today so I could stop and take a picture. The weather co-operated nicely too :) I think these are haws from a hawthorn but not 100% certain on that!

Day 4 - This little fella was visiting my neighbours climbing rose and just hopped into a clear space long enough for me to get a few shots off. This was the best of the bunch but with him in heavy shadow and bright background, it's not brilliant :(

Day 5 - At long last, a visit from a Tortoiseshell butterfly - I wrote about these a few posts ago - apparently their numbers have dropped almost 80% since the early 90's so not as common as they once were. If this summers visitors to my buddleia are anything to go by, I'd guess the Red Admiral is surviving mankinds destructive habits the best.

Day2Day - week 8 - Butterflies

This week has been rather OK-ish weatherwise so my garden surprise visitor (the Buddleia) has been covered in all sorts of wildlife including some butterflies I hadn't seen before so here they are!

Day 1 - a Large White Butterfly - I think it's the pattern on the wing tips that decide whether it's a large or small white one!

Day 2 - It's my tatty neighbour again from a previous week but I called it a tortoiseshell and it's not. It's a Comma, I think. I had another this week that I had never seen before so I had to look it up on Google. I found a lovely Butterfly identification site here and while I was looking, I saw this one there so managed to find out exactly what it was.

Day 3 - A Painted Lady - I knew straight away that I would need to ID this one - haven't seen it since either so I was really lucky that it stayed where it was long enough for me to run upstairs, grab my camera, change to my zoom lens and get some shots!

Day 4 - A Small Heath butterfly - another I had to look up. This was was wandering round Mum's coneflowers and I knew I didn't have time to run for the zoom lens so this is my everyday lens and a tight crop :)

And Day 5 - My favourite British butterfly - a Peacock. When we decided to let the weed grow that is now an 8ft Buddleia, I was secretly hoping for a summer full of butterflies. We had a huge dark purple one in our garden when I was a child and I was always fascinated by these lovely delicate creatures. This beauty has visited for the first time today - just in time to make me smile in the sunshine and to fill slot number 5 in my day2day post :)

I can't believe I've managed to keep this up for 8 weeks already. It seems like only a couple of weeks since we started but I'm really enjoying it so here's to the next 8 weeks! I guess it's going to be a lot harder during the winter due to lack of light but I'll just have to get my thinking cap on for some interesting Still Life shots, won't I?

Day2Day - wk 7 - Just an Ifit week

What's an Ifit I hear you ask? If it got in front of my lens, it had it's photo taken! Very similar to my ifit meals - if it's in the fridge, throw it in the pan (also known as a sort of stir fry). Also a pretty horrid week all round and to top it off, I have failed to do a photo today so only 4 this week :(

Day 1 - Monday I tried to cook a cake to send to Lazygiraffe over on Etsy. We've been partnered up in a Cake Swap. This is the devastation of my kitchen after cooking AND it wasn't very nice either!

Day 2 - Tuesday and all the neighbourhood starlings decided my roof was the best for a party! I love watching them when they all fly up together but boy, do they make a noise meantime!
Day 3 - Wednesday and the sun came out for a while. This beauty (Red Admiral) was so busy stuffing his face, he didn't take any notice of me or my camera! I have cropped this one quite heavily so you can see his eye and his tongue (proboscis) quite clearly (only if you want to, of course!).

and Day 4, Thursday. Just yesterday morning, I heard a news report that the small tortoiseshell butterfly numbers have dropped 80% since the 1990's. I hadn't seen one all summer then just one day after hearing the report, there were two of them on my buddleia. This poor fellow has a very tatty wing so I'm guessing he's either been attacked by a bird (and got away) or he's an old boy.