A bit of garden wildlife

You don’t have to go to exotic places to see fascinating wildlife.  Sometimes it’s there in your own back garden/back yard.

We have a wheelbarrow stored upside down in our garden.  On lifting it recently my wife found these two Common toads (bufo bufo) side by side.  We’ve seen individuals before, but two together was unusual.  She called me over and I, of course, went and got my OM-1 camera with my OM System 60mm macro lens.  A quick focus-stacked set and they were captured for posterity.  Sweet!

On a Scabious flower just yards away some real drama was playing out.  The female Flower Crab spider had previously caught a bumblebee and its remnants were hanging from a petal.  A fly landed, and the spider immediately made a move, but too late. The fly flew away.

Not in our garden but at a friend’s, this Great Tit was “inbound on finals” towards the peanut dispenser.  It’s a crop of a small part of the frame of my 4/3rds sensor.  It was shot at 4000 ISO to allow for a short shutter speed of 1/3200th Sec.  I reduced the high ISO noise in post-processing using the ON1 RAW editor.  Given it’s such a small part of the frame it’s turned out pretty well.

Take a look round your garden.  You never know what you’ll turn up.