Signs of the Season Turning Our first visit to North America was in 1987 at about this time of the year. A friend we were staying with mentioned that seeing Egrets on a lake in Minnesota was his marker that summer is nearly over while ours has become seeing Golden Rod in flower. [...]
Garden Creatures The sun at just the right angle illuminated a horizontal band of white "fluff" in a Pagoda Dogwood tree and it warranted a better look. At first appearances one thinks of Tent Moth caterpillars but this is the wrong sort of tree. Closer inspection found that most of the affected area [...]
This and That Coming back from a walk we found a Banded Hairstreak butterfly (Satyrium calanus) on the "other" sort of milkweed (Asclepia tuberosum). They only open their wings to fly away but the upper surface isn't much more colourful than this. ** Not bad photo for one taken with an iPhone, albeit it [...]
Very Tiny Bees A very trending topic, as they say, at the moment is how to encourage pollinator species not to go extinct die to habitat loss, insecticidal sprays and climate change. This something we are hastily in favour of. Trouble is, when we think about pollinators we usually think [...]
I have had a city park near to me pretty well all my life and because they have always been there I have rather taken it for granted that they always would be. Some parks have been wide open with trees and grass and sometimes a lake. While others have been more formal [...]
Text here Painted Lady Vanessa carduis Starting to appear in the garden now the June heat is beginning to build up Text here Canadian Tiger Swallowtail Papillio canadensis Another garden visitor - also seen today, but not photographed, a Black Swallowtail (Papillio polyxenes) [...]
Desirable Weeds Continuing the experiment of seeing what comes up if the lawn is not mown ... this week we have Buttercups and we have Clover. Actually we have two species of Clover ... this is a tall clover (Trifolium hybridum* - the Alsike Clover) but we also have low [...]
Text here Guelder Rose Two varieties of Viburnum are in flower at the moment, the one to the front is Viburnum. opulus var. opulus (European Guelder Rose), the taller one behind, is a North American native - Viburnum. opulus var. americanum aka V. trilobium (High-bush Cranberry). Gorgeous complex flowers followed later by bunches [...]
Living with Wildlife Not infrequently after looking at a plant or bird picture that we have shared here or on Facebook people ask if they can see our "wildlife" garden ... not everyone lives close enough to book one of our guided tours so this is what (part of) it looks like on [...]
Moss - Fruiting Bodies One of the several mosses lining the sides of the waterfall in our garden - the elevated parts are the spore-containing reproductive capsules which together with their stalks form the sporophyte of the plant.