We have been living in our present house for 14 years at time of writing. In all the time here we like to think we have developed a really nice garden environment.

We arrived to view the place all that time ago and the vendor was effusive about the plants and the wonderful “patio” they had down……and we couldn’t not see what she meant!!

The place was plain, very little decent planting and that patio was just a load of mismatched weird tiles – not even laid properly!

So we moved in and just lived with it….being the bloke in the house I needed a garden shed – a big one, right up near the patio so I could go out and “do stuff!” Did I REALLY use it? Well – that’s a whole other story!!

We gradually got the place looking as we wanted and a waterfall on the remaining pond. Two were just too much for the size of the garden, that’s after having two ponds at one time! New patio and bird feeders, no large ugly and mainly un-used shed and we were beginning to get there.

In the meantime we started to get visitors…. Mainly doves and pigeons, occasional blackbirds and sparrows. This has increased to a point now where we have a large visitor population of feathered friends.

We have recently had visits from beautiful blue tits, long tailed tits, chaffinches. We also have the local jackdaw and starling population in now! Some folks don’t like these birds but to us they are really interesting to watch – the starlings squabble like children ALL the time and are a real treat to watch.

NOW we have started to get birds we’ve never seen in the garden before. The wagtails have just started and today we saw for the first time a beautiful little goldcrest – small, busy and just fantastic to watch…

In the recent summer of 2012 the wet weather must have taken its toll on the general bird feeding ability away from the town gardens. It was during the fine spells we started to get the starlings visiting.

Not my photos, yet. Sorry these were lifted from the Google searches.
It’s been too overcast to get photos of our most recent visitors…

In the few days of sun we would take a break and sit out on the patio – these birds would move around as if we were not even there.

Now is the time (actually – anytime is the time!) to start to think about what photographs you want to take and how to go about it. If you have a garden – go on out there and just take stock – there is more out there than you think.

Just walk out into the garden and HAVE A GO!

DON’T forget the local frog population if you have a pond!

So – get out, take the camera and just play with it to find out what suits you best!

Bye for now