Wildlife In My Garden.

I've taken a lot about how wild a place a garden can be so taking my own I decided over the course of the last 6-8 months to look real close and find out for myself just how much life I could find. My garden is massive its only you run of the mill kind you'd find behind any semi detached house in the country, yes I do feed the birds all year round and there's enough plants to hopefully encourage the insect life but I'd never really thought about how much life there might be out there. Here I going to add the best photo's of what I've found, bird wise I could have put no end of photo's up but I don't really want to focus all my work on them as I want to dig a bit deeper into every possible corner to see what I can find.

 Tech. Details

F-stop- f/9

Expo- 160secs

ISO- 1000

Expo Bias- 0 steps

Focal Length- 100mm

 Tech. Details

F-stop- f/11

Expo- 160secs

ISO- 1000

Expo Bias- 0 steps

Focal Length- 100mm

As I've gone into in an earlier post gardens are becoming somewhere bee populations are taking a serious hammering so I'm glad to find that the few plants I've added to my own space seem to be drawing in quiet a few on a regular basis.

 Tech. Details

F-stop- f/11

Expo- 100secs

ISO- 1000

Expo Bias- 0 steps

Focal Length- 100mm

 Tech. Details

F-stop- f/9

Expo- 640secs

ISO- 800

Expo Bias- 0 steps

Focal Length- 268mm

 Tech. Details

F-stop- f/10

Expo- 200secs

ISO- 2000

Expo Bias- 0 steps

Focal Length- 100mm

 Tech. Details

F-stop- f/5.6

Expo- 2500secs

ISO- 2000

Expo Bias- 0 steps

Focal Length- 500mm

 Tech. Details

F-stop- f/5.6

Expo- 1000secs

ISO- 800

Expo Bias- 0 steps

Focal Length- 500mm

It seems its not just the small birds that take advantage during the winter of a free feed, on one particular cold and snowy day this Jackdaw and its partner were backwards and forwards most of the day taking peanuts by the beak full.

 Tech. Details

F-stop- f/10

Expo- 160secs

ISO- 2000

Expo Bias- 0 steps

Focal Length- 100mm

Even in the darkest corner of the garden if you know where to look you can find all manner of creep crawlies like this mass of hundreds of baby spiders. Don't like spiders much but still very interesting sight to find.

 Tech. Details

F-stop- f/7.1

Expo- 400secs

ISO- 800

Expo Bias- 0 steps

Focal Length- 180mm

One of the biggest if smallest surprise visitors, never expected to see a mouse climb up a metal poll and start feeding straight from the feeder. Thought they might be able cleaning up seed from the floor but I guess this one was feeling more adventures then most.

 Tech. Details

F-stop- f/10

Expo- 400secs

ISO- 1000

Expo Bias- 0 steps

Focal Length- 100mm

 Tech. Details

F-stop- f/5.6

Expo- 5000secs

ISO- 2000

Expo Bias- 0 steps

Focal Length- 201mm

You always see lots of action shots of birds flying into feeds so this is my attempt which I'm fairly happy with, would have loved the wings to have been more open and spread out showing the full structure of the wing but you can't get it right first time every time can you.

 Tech. Details

F-stop- f/8

Expo- 400secs

ISO- 2000

Expo Bias- 0 steps

Focal Length- 100mm

 Tech. Details

F-stop- f/5.6

Expo- 1000secs

ISO- 400

Expo Bias- -0.7 steps

Focal Length- 230mm

A bird you just don't see as much in gardens anymore, Song Thrushes I swear were everywhere when I was a kid but now you hardly see them. Another example of how our changing gardens effect wildlife maybe?

 Tech. Details

F-stop- f/5.6

Expo- 5000secs

ISO- 2000

Expo Bias- 0 steps

Focal Length- 500mm

 Tech. Details

F-stop- f/5.6

Expo- 4000secs

ISO- 3200

Expo Bias- 0 steps

Focal Length- 500mm

 Tech. Details

F-stop- f/10

Expo- 800secs

ISO- 1000

Expo Bias- 0 steps

Focal Length- 300mm

 Tech. Details

F-stop- f/5.6

Expo- 1000secs

ISO- 800

Expo Bias- +1 step

Focal Length- 425mm

A rare visitor to this country in my own back yard, Waxwings only come here during the harshest of winters in Europe to feed on our berries. When I first spotted it I thought it might be an escaped pet bird but then when I saw its twenty friends all hanging of a Rowen tree I soon was reaching for a bird book to find out just  what it was.

  Tech. Details

F-stop- f/7.1

Expo- 500secs

ISO- 1250

Expo Bias- 0 steps

Focal Length- 328mm

What I'm showing you here is that a small garden can be bursting with life even if you'd don't necessarily realize it, I had no real idea about the amount of wildlife that I'd find in my garden but then again I should have expected there to be a reasonable variety as I'd already follow some of my own advise from previous posts on feeding birds and having more plant life. One thing I did notice was the importance of if you start feeding birds you have to carry it on all year round because during the really hard winter months it becomes an important source of food they being to rely on. One thing I'll take from this is how relaxing I found the time just sitting and watch life play out around me, I don't think I'd ever considered my garden as such a busy place but after this I can't look at it in the same way ever again. I'm thinking some of these shot's will work quiet well with the double exposure process I just need the right second photo to get the message of what you can achieve with a little conservation within your garden.