Christmas Crocuses!

Last Christmas I received a lovely gift of five crocus bulbs with their own special glass jars to grow them in.
I've really enjoyed watching their progress.
The growth of their roots which start out like lots of tiny tight curls and then slowly unfurl as a frizzy mop of hair.
Now I'm enjoying their beautiful flowers.


They belong to the Iris family.
Which isn't surprising considering their striking colour.
And unfortunately how they both come and go so quickly.



Last years Iris.

Japonica, Japanese Quince

I was out the other day taking photos of the daffodils, again, after the winter I was feeling starved of colour.
Anyway my neighbour kindly introduced me to her 'japonica' otherwise known as japanese Quince and I fell in love.
What a beautiful little tree (for some reason I hate the word shrub) ablaze with colour
when everything else looks half dead and frost bitten except for the darling daffodils of course.

Treecreeper, up close and personal

Today I was lucky enough to be up close and personal with a tiny bird called a Treecreeper.
Poor little thing flew into the window pane and stunned himself badly.
Maybe a hawk or something was chasing him.
I placed him on an outdoor potted plant to give him a chance to recover and then took advantage of his stupor to take these photos.
I'd never seen one before, they're so tiny and delicate and yet he did recover, took one look at me and flew off!

Garden Portraits

A few photographs from my garden that I mucked around with in photoshop.
Just having fun, but I really like the yellow against the blue.

I did this watercolour yesterday sitting out in the garden.
It was a beautiful sunny day and I was in my element until about an hour later I suddenly realised I was frozen, the sun had disappeared and all the colours and shadows had shifted with the light.
So I called it a day and packed up.

Vibrant Poppies

Just a couple of photos from the garden.
Poppies are one of my favourite flowers, I love the vibrancy of the colours.
It's as if they know they only have a short while to bloom so they give it all they've got. A shot of pure colour.
Apparently the seeds can go into hibernation , if that's the right term, for years. So when road works or building churn up the soil poppies can suddenly pop up as if out of nowhere, just to see what's going on:)

Gardening, a learning curve

When I planted this flower bed last spring I thought I'd do it Mother Nature style.
In other words I got lazy after planting the lily bulbs and simply scattered a lot of different seeds willynilly. Then covered them lightly with compost, watered and left them to it.
The result is the chaos you see in the photo, not too bad but because I had no idea what was what when they were growing (being a bit of a beginner at this gardening lark) I didn't do any thinning out.
So the poor things were totally overcrowded and all grew very tall and spindly trying to get enough light I suppose.
Well I'll know better next year and give them a little more breathing space!

Wonderful Weeds

Even though I've a garden full of flowers, I found myself and my camera drawn to these old friends.



I don't know the botanical name for these but as kids we used them to play "soldiers", where you'd hold out your poor "soldier" horizontally while your opponent tried to whip off it's head using their "soldier", one go at a time.
The beauty of such destruction was that these "soldiers", being weeds, were unwanted and plentiful!
The equivalent these days would be Cannon Fodder on your PC.




I've always liked Dandelions.
I think it was initially their name captured my imagination, a dandy lion, so I thought because of the golden mane of the flower!
I know , I know, you just have to imagine the lions head.
Well I just googled them and the name comes from the old french Dent-de-lion, the lions tooth because of the shape of the leaves.
Another childhood game was telling the time with their fairy clocks.
I don't think I need to explain that one.

Weeds are just plants in the wrong place or in my case all over the place!

Delightful Delphiniums

This is the first time I've grown delphiniums, and I'm delighted with them. The little tadpole buds totaly animate them for me.

Learning to negotiate the feeder.

Beautiful Baby Blue Tits

I'm having great fun watching the antics of these little beauties.
They sit around like fluffy pom-poms,well soggy pom-poms today with the rain, pip squeaking at each other until a parent flies in and then they frantically flutter their wings and demand loudly "ME,ME,FEED ME"


I really feel sorry for the parents, it's non stop for them.
The babies are so fluffy and plump, and here's poor Mom looking very bedraggled in the rain.

The cruelty of nature

Janie Goes Wild

The baby Green Finches I've been watching have all died of exposure over night. There was evidence of foul play (no pun intended).I don't mean to sound flippant, I was actually very upset when I discovered them and the nest covered in Momma birds feathers. Obviously somebody else discovered her too and I suspect the worst.
In fact I suspect it was Miss Tippytoes (see below) in the garden with a set of sharp claws.


Here she is playing with her latest victim, a shrew. I know they're protected species but what can I do, there's no talking to her.
She is a lean, mean killing machine.....with a fluffy tummy!



There is a lovely birdy story with a happy ending and gorgeous photos at Bookbabies site
Well worth checking out, lots of other very interesting posts as well.

Baby birdies.

Janie Goes Wild reporting from the nest.

All the eggs seem to have hatched in the Green Finch household.
I still cant tell if all five survived the hatching stage, in fact I still don't know what part of their anatomy I'm even looking at.
Momma bird is doing a great job and I'm leaving her at peace for the moment, well till they open their eyes anyway, which could be tomorrow at the rate they develop!
Apparently it takes only two to three weeks from hatching to fledge.

Hatchlings

News Flash from Janie Goes Wild
Some of the chicks have hatched, no idea how many but as you can see from the photo there's still at least one egg yet to go.
From what I can see, they're not exactly beautiful babies! Bald ,pinky orange with grey wispy bits and big black eyes that aren't open yet. Definitely ugly duckling syndrome!

Communication, Guardian photo competition

I think these two look like they're having a chat. The little fledgling is telling Momma Green Finch all about the wonderful things he's seen on his first day out!
Although it's more likely he's demanding to be fed!

This is my enrty for In Pictures, the Guardian weekend photo competition.Communication is the topic this week.

Mother hen

These are the latest photos from Janie goes wild
Mrs. Green Finch is doing a great job minding her eggs, she's so diligent even with a great big lens in her face!
She is so used to me popping in for an update, I suppose.




Don't forget to check out Mooney goes wild
The Blue Tit's eggs have hatched and they now have 8 chicks in the nest.
Bravo and congratulations.

Sibling rivalry .....When push comes to shove....

They're so funny and nearly twice the size of poor old mommy bird, with their baby fluff.
They're the first baby birds I've seen this spring, they must be one of the first broods.According to Rob Hume's book, Birds of Britain and Europe the Green finch have 1 or 2 broods of 4 to 6 eggs from April to July.
And I'm still watching the nest with 5 eggs yet to hatch.

Mystery Rhododendron

This is my mystery rhododendron in full flower.
It's absolutely beautiful, and adds a tropical element to the garden.
It's a mystery because I cant seem to find out what kind of rhododendron it is.
I even blogged about it when it was about to flower
Anyway I'm going to write into The Irish Garden magazine and ask their Garden know how section to identify it for me, now that its in blossom.


Spot the Spider
My rhododendron is hosting a Misumena vatia

Bird watching a Green Finch

I noticed this Green Finch, well to be honest it could have been one of his pals,my twitching hasn't progressed to individual identification ...yet.
Anyway , he kept disappearing into a certain point in the hedge.
I decided to investigate and low and behold, he was building a nest.



Fortunately it is perched where I can easily view and photograph it, without disturbing it.
That was about a week ago.
Today I had a look and was thrilled to see five eggs had been laid.
So I'm going to do my own version of Mooney goes wild
But instead of watching a Blue Tit's nest live, 24/7 by web cam, it'll be Janie goes wild with a digital camera every couple of days!

Californian Poppy

This is one of my personal favourites of the poppies that I grew and photographed in my garden last year.
I'm a little disappointed that they don't seem to have seeded all that many for this years crop. I thought poppies were avaricious self seeders.
Well anyway I wasn't leaving anything to chance and I did scatter seeds of the wild red poppy around. So I'm looking forward to them popping up!!
You can see more of my Garden photos in flickr (if you're interested)