Non DTGD August Favourites

I had a few favourite cards from August made after Dare To Get Dirty.
And a heron that I saw on my way to work this morning. In fact there were two along the Liffey which I something I don't often see.
Thankfully after the rather cold spell last week the temperatures have risen again - some sunshine would be an added bonus!

This month's header photo of crested grebes is from Lausanne in Switzerland, when we visited last September.

August Favourites

With the Dare to Get Dirty challenge on Splitcoast at the start of August, I might have too many favourites for one post - I'll see how much I can narrow it down.
I also have a couple of birds - a juvenile goldfinch, and a cormorant. I have two photos of the cormorant. If you only saw the first one, you'd think I was along the coast or at least in some estuary somewhere. I love that I see these birds right in the middle of the city. According to the distance Google Maps gives me, this is about 6 kilometres drive from the mouth of the river, so taking off a bit for roads, we're talking about 5 k or about 3 miles. I don't think the river is tidal much further up.

Gone to Seed

I spotted these seedheads yesterday evening when I went out to the shed to bring the wash in. Luckily I had the macro lens on my camera all ready to go...They're on a weed which is growing in my big pot of mint. And I need to deal with that and make some mint sauce before it all goes to seed too! I stocked up well on mint jelly last year, but am almost right out of mint sauce.

Can you spot the aphid in one of the photos?

Surprise!!

C got home from work today, and said "Get your camera and come quickly". He didn't tell me how far we had to go to see what he had seen - or I'd have put my flip-flops on!
But it was so worth it - I can't remember the last time I've seen a hedgehog that wasn't road-kill. Something must have disturbed this one to be out mid-afternoon, and it didn't look fully grown to me.
My camera battery was in the red, which I didn't realise, not having used it previously today. But I did get a few shots and even a snippet of video - though I think the video drained the battery altogether.
Because of C's motorbikes we have a locked gate across the entrance to our back garden, so I don't think we'll ever see this sweetie around our garden but it's nice to know that he's nearby. And once the battery was dead, we went back to the house for our slightly delayed coffee!

For anyone not sure of the size of a hedgehog - an adult is about 6-8 inches long.

I have quite a few of the Penny Black hedgehog stamps. Here's one of the most recent cards I made with one of them.

Young Robin and July Favourites

We've had so much rain over the last couple of weeks, the windows are very dirty indeed. But when I spotted this little robin this morning, I was so entertained - he just has one patch of juvenile plumage left and I thought he almost looks as if he's wearing a necklace. No memory card in the camera, so by the time I'd found the camera and then found my spare memory card (in my handbag, faster than trying to find the "regular" one), he was no longer in the best position either.

Not very many favourite cards for July what with being away and the general summer business. August will more than compensate - after Dare To Get Dirty over on SCS I have plenty of favourites already.

  I know I don't normally post Christmas cards. But I had a lot of fun working out how to make a proper spinning pinwheel  - here's the spin. with a link to the tutorial.

Young robin

From a couple of weeks back. We seem to have a lot of robins around at the moment. In the first photo, I am quite sure he was sunning himself the way I have seen blackbirds do; wings spread out, beak open, glazed look in their eyes - but I've never seen an adult robin do it.

I'm pretty sure it's what the adult starling in the first of these pictures is doing too - you can see his wings spread wide out. The second picture is a juvenile starling - he just been bathing in the water dish, but by the time I got my camera he'd flown up into the tree.

Sheep Country...

Did I say it had been thirty years since I was last in Connemara? I'd forgotten how many sheep there were - everywhere. (And lakes...) Next time I make a card with a sheep on it, I'll have a better memory of how to colour it. Most of the ones we saw had black faces.
The rope sheep were in the grounds of Kylemore Abbey, near the walled garden.

Pied Wagtail

Things with Wings...

And no, this time it's not birds.
I've been feeling that I should finish off my Paris trip before making more posts - but being realistic in the summer days I just don't get a lot of photo editing done. And now my good widescreen monitor is in the throes of giving up the ghost (so that it spends more time on the floor not working than it does in front of me). So that will have to be a rainy day project - I really do want to share some of my Giverny photos.
Here are some of the wildlife that I took when we had a week's holiday over in the west of Ireland earlier this month. We were mostly in Clare but also spent a couple of days in Connemara.

Black-tailed skimmer

Common Blue Damselfly

The first butterfly shot isn't as good but I had to include it - take a look at that eye!!

I only took my Canon with me this time, since I wasn't even bringing the laptop. Disaster nearly struck when I realised that I'd left the charger at home. Even with one spare fully-charged battery, that wasn't going to be enough for a week. Luckily a good old-fashioned camera shop in Ennis had a multi-purpose charger with moveable contacts, and checked that it would work with my batteries. Now I can even charge them in car if necessary - pretty unlikely, though. Thankfully C understood that a holiday without a camera for me would be like him having to do without his guitar, so he was happy to make the unscheduled trip and purchase.