Gardeners' Friend

Where I used to have two Hedgehogs visit the feeding station every night I now see just one which visits two or three nights a week. Early this morning the visitor earned its free meal when it found some natural food - a nice bug juicy slug.



That is one less to worry about! No sound from this camera.

Life among the Kangaroo Paws

Kangaroo Paws in this case is the Australian plant Anigozanthos. This is regarded as a tender plant in the UK so I brought mine indoors for the Winter. It has spent its time in the unheated conservatory where temperatures probably got down to about 4C some nights. Although it is said to be a Summer flowering plant it kept one flower stem going all through the Winter and is producing two new ones already this year:



This isn't the life referred to in the title though.
I had spotted a small snail shell on one of the leaves.....



... which I decided would make a suitable subject for some focus stacked close shots:





Later when I took the 'normal shot' (2nd photo down) I spotted something else next to the shell. I set up the macro camera again and was staggered to observe the smallest slug I have ever seen:





Those were rather hurried single shots taken just before I knocked them both off the table. After a scrabble around I found the snail shell which I discovered to be empty but as for the slug ... it's still on the loose somewhere.

Tuesday Twister - Guess What

Last week's twisted photo didn't give any problems for Ragged Robin, Wilma, Keith, Adrian and TexWisGirl who get my congratulations and their virtual gold stars for identifying the slug:

   

I wonder whether this one will stump people. Maybe this will be the first time I manage to keep all the virtual gold starts to myself.

Guess What:


Please leave any guesses in the comments.
They will be revealed, along with the answer, next Tuesday.
No prizes, Just for fun and a virtual gold star.

Walkabout

When we go for our afternoon perambulation Bobby and I usually cut through the back of the churchyard. More often than not there are some chickens from the nearby smallholdings diving for cover. The other day there were two which had made themselves a comfortable hollow under one of the small trees. They were not going to move unless they really had to.



One day I tied Bobby outside the church while I went in to see if it was possible to photograph the stained glass windows. For these I took three photos at +1 0 -1 EV and process them as HDR. This window facing East was difficult as there was a green tint to the light which was reflected from trees nearby.



This small one is in the porch and again is so close to vegetation that it receives very little direct light.



It is not very often these days that farm machinery is left out in the open as quite a few tractors have been stolen in the county.



There is very little Autumn colour at the moment as the plants are changing colour at different times but I did spot this on the way home.



On damp nights it is as well to take a torch when I let Bobby out for his last look round as I never know what may end up underfoot.



 I wonder how many different types of slug there are.