Okay so glad I got that off my chest. My bird feeding activities have evolved somewhat over the years. To begin with I simply allowed seedheads to remain on plants knowing that the birds would enjoy them. I also planted fruit trees etc., with absolutely no intention of harvesting the fruit, knowing that the birds would soon find them (in 5 years of growing spectacular grape vines which are just loaded with grapes on a yearly basis I have perhaps eaten half a dozen grapes, and I don't mean bunches, I mean individual grapes.) However, when it came to actually setting out feeders for the birds I was loathe to do so, simply because I am also a cat owner and I didn't want to be serving up a hot lunch for my already over-fed cats. As it was, during a particularly cold winter I spied a rather nice lantern type feeder at lowes and a pole on which to mount it, I decided, having looked long and hard at it that my cats are a) to lazy to try and climb the pole and b) would not be able to climb the pole even if their laziness suddenly left them and they, in a moment of madness, decided to try. So I bought the bird feeder and it was very well received by my winter guests. As time progressed I added another feeder, and then another and then.... well you get the picture, I now have 11 different types of feeders, offering either a mixture of seed and black sunflower seeds and nyjer seed (thistle seed) for the finches, as well as several brick type suet feeders for the woodpeckers, and just to keep things even I also have a squirrel bungy cord feeder so the squirrels don't feel left out. I have to admit that I spend rather too much money on bird food. Whereas other females would go out and buy shoes, clothes and jewelry and then hide them from their husbands, I buy 25lb bags of sunflower seed and pretend that it has been in the kitchen for months. (I do the same with plants "oh that, oh that was 50 cents at Lowes a year or so back, it must have just come back up"). In my defence I do not buy clothes, shoes or jewelry, feeling as I do that they are a complete waste of gardening and bird food money. After years of trial and error I have settled upon a bird food formula that my birds appear to like. I buy a 10lb bag of Wagners Supreme Bird Food, a 25lb bag of black oil sunflower seed, and a 10lb bag of peanuts. I then mix the entire shebang together in the sunflower seed bag and the birds appear to adore it. I also buy a separate bag of nyjer seed for the finches which is never mixed in with the other but is placed into dedicated feeders. In any event, despite me being the owner of seven cats I have had very few losses over the years, and I would like to think that I am saving more birds (especially during the winter) than I am risking losses to the cats. If a photo I took one winter day is anything to go by I think I am right. I took a photo of my garden (not good enough to post here) and entitled it "count the cardinals" when you got down to it, there were 25 both males and females. So I have nicely led into some bird photties. When you put out an all you can eat buffet sometimes the visitors get a little short with their dinner guests, you know the huge person at the buffet line taking up all the food before the others can get to it... I call this "Food Fight"

as for this next one it shows my wonderful relationship with my cardinals. While the males tend to be a little twitchy the females have come to know me as "the idiot human with the black box" and are merely amused by me...

This is totally unrelated to my blog topic, but I am need of a major rant and this is the place to do it I think. Today, (much to the anti-war protesters utter delight my god they must have been almost orgasmic, I have never seen a group of people so wanting people to die than these idiots), it was announced that the 2,000th American military person had been killed in the war in Iraq. My question is SO? It doesn't matter if it is the 2,000th, the 1,999th, or the 2nd, it is a person dying and it is not an even that should be used for political opportunism which is exactly what is happening. That complete an utter fruitcake Cindy Sheehan (may her child forgive her for her transgressions) has taken this and run with it since because of the hurricanes that have hit the US her 15 minutes of fame ran out. How about throwing a few facts into the debate here, just for grins and giggles, ya know, there's nothing like facts to screw up a good story in the main stream media is there. Did you know (most people don't because they spend their entire lives watching Desperate Housewives instead of the news) that 1,500 US troops per year are killed in the US. No that is not a typo, 1,500 US troops are killed every year, from such things as traffic accidents, training accidents whatever. It would appear to me that if 2,000 troops have been killed in Iraq in a war that has been going on 2 and a half years and 1500 troops per year are killed in the US (ie 3,750 over the same time period) then it is a damn sight safer to be in Iraq than it is to be in the US? Again just for grins and giggles go and do a google of the death toll of World War II or Vietnam... go on do it, okay in case you can't be bothered how about this World War II US Dead between 290,000 and 300,000 depending on which source you read, Vietnam 58,000. This is war people, I mean what part of that do you not understand, what part of that do the people who when polled that "the war in Iraq is going badly" not understand. Okay let me ask you this, when in the history of the world has a war gone "well" A war is a war, it consists of the most part of people from one side killing people from the other side. Eventually (one would hope) one side wins the other side loses and it slides into the annals of history. I suppose that the problem is that the majority of people who are expressing an opinion on this matter have never been a member of the military, trust me if you have spent only a short time in the military you will have an entirely different opinion. (I spent 14 years in the Royal Navy), to begin with when you join you join with the understanding that there could be a possibility that you will be serving during a war, second you know, for a fact (as we all did when I was in the British Armed Forces and living with the terrorist attacks of the IRA on a daily basis) that you are the target of terrorists and lunatics who see you as a symbol and a target and according to them you are better off dead. BUT you serve because you believe you are doing it for the greater good. I can guarantee you that every single one of the troops serving out there in Iraq believe in their mission, they believe that they are serving for the greater good, and believe that each death, no matter how tragic, is simply a casualty of the situation. I am so tired of listening to the pathetic whining of the left about this, it is tiresome. Oh and this "we support the troops but we don't support the war" nonsense is just that nonsense, if you support the troops then you have to support their mission 100% without fail. I will not be surprised if in the near future we will have people spitting on the guys coming back from Iraq and calling them baby killers because of the left's take on this. Oh and you do know they FOUND WMD in Iraq don't you...? no sorry, you were too busy watching Desperate Housewives....

As I had mentioned the key to getting good photographs of critters in general is getting your critter, whatever it may be, into a comfort zone with your presence. Of course that cannot be achieved for the most part if you are simply visiting a place, a zoo for instance, but if you are like me, i.e, seriously lazy, and do not want to have to drive to your models then you must bring the mountain to Mohamed so to speak and once the mountain has arrived make it feel at home. For instance, I had mentioned the "standing still by a nectar rich plant until something lands" as a good technique for getting butterfly shots, there is also the "let the butterfly know you are not going to hurt them" technique which takes time and patience but is well worth the effort. Over time, if you approach a butterfly on a flower on numerous occasions and never touch it, but simply observe, then eventually the butterfly is going to realize that you will do it no harm. You then become the ultimate in the critter world "the idiot human with the black box in its hand". If you can achieve that status then your critters will ignore you and, in some cases, like my lizards (or to be technically correct Green Anoles, but lets face it who wants to be called an Anole?), will actually pose for you, thinking as they obviously do, "okay just pose for her, stand here and smile, show her this side, and that side and then she will be happy and leave you the hell alone." I am pretty much getting to the point where I am "the idiot human" with all my critters, particularly my dragonflies, who not only see me as an idiot human with a black box but now also see me as another landing strip. On many a day I will walk around my garden with several dragonflies attached to me coming along for the ride. This approach works incredibly well in an organic garden because the critters will quickly realize that your all you can eat buffet that you have so lovingly provided is not going to contain any nasty surprises, like insecticide on the flowers or weedkiller on their host plants. So if you are like me, lazy (well let me qualify that, I work 50+ hours a work at my proper job, I run the household, do all the laundry, housework, gardening etc., etc.,) then the best way to get some stunning shots of critters is to bring them to you. Alright, I'm going to say it "if you build it they will come."

I am a nature fanatic as you may have guessed. I not only love my "furbabies" that being my dogs and cats but I love all the other critters that mother nature has blessed my garden with. Of course my loves are seasonal. During the winter, when there is little else to look at I delight in watching and photographing the birds which frequent the many feeders which I have in my garden. As the temperatures get colder and the days shorten the activity at my feeders increases. The cardinals, in all their scarlet glory, are here year round, as are many of my regulars but come winter I appear to be the "winter home" of huge flocks of gold finch sporting their drab winter colours. It is much to my chagrin that come the spring, just as they change into their canary like breeding plumage they sod off inland to breed, ingrates that they are, I keep 'em fat and happy all winter and they can't even stick around long enough for me to enjoy their brilliance. During the summer of course the butterflies replace the birds as my favourite models to photograph. It is more tricky to get them to pose of course but if you plant the correct plants then you can get them to trust you enough that they will view you as a necessary nuisance and let you snap away. Most of the time the trick to photographing butterflies is just to stand still next to a nectar rich bloom and wait. It requires patience of course but so do most things that are worth doing. If the butterflies view you as an inanimate object or I think in my case "the idiot human with the black box in her hand" they will ignore you as they go about the important task of stocking up on premium. While I'm at it I have to let you in on a secret. If you are interested in photographing butterflies then I recommend that you plant Mexican Sunflower or using its more correct name "Tithonia." While butterfly bush, lantana and zinnia are also visited I have found that without exception my butterflies will visit the mexican sunflowers first and will only resort to the other flowers when the tithonia meters are reading empty. Further, the flower's upright, flat blooms provide not only a perfect landing pad for butterflies of all sizes but also provide a perfect background for your photographs. If a butterfly can land and sit comfortably on a bloom it is much easier to get a crisp shot of one, as opposed to them having to constantly flutter to stay attached to a butterfly bush or lantana bloom for instance. In any event, as summer here is coming to an end and my butterfly watching ceases and my bird watching begins I thought I would share some of my favourite shots. First up, the Eastern Tiger Swallowtail. The Liberace of butterflies, the star of the show, all he is missing is the baby grand piano and the candelabra. next up a shot I titled "Ooooooh have you been working out" a small skipper sharing a mexican sunflower bloom with a black swallowtail

A long time ago (okay back in 2000) I wrote a column whereby I explained my philosophy with regards to Mother Nature. It was called "The Green Man" and I think, as it appears to be very relevant today, I am going to reproduce it. I was almost prophetic in my words I think and as it happens over the weekend I took some photographs which illustrated my point brilliantly so I thought I would combine the two here, hey its my blog and I suppose I can now have fun with it. Here is the article and at the end the photos which illustrate my point will be added. I hope you enjoy it.

November 15th 2000



THE GREEN MAN

To begin with I was raised a Christian. I good old fashioned Church of England Protestant. However, my mother, bless her heart never insisted that we follow in her footsteps she instead allowed us to find our own way and to believe what we chose to believe. As I grew older and began to think for myself I realised how the concept of "a merciful god" became more and more absurd. I think it was during the time of "Band Aid" and the dreadful pictures of the starving in Ethiopia were splashed across the screens of our televisions that I realized that there could be no such thing as "a merciful god" if god existed he was mean and vengeful and an out and out sadist. It was at that time that I discovered a book "The Lost Gods of England" where I rediscovered the pagan faith of my homeland. I discovered that Mother Nature or the "green man" as she was also known was god, and in direct contrast to the Christian god she was not only not merciful she was a bitch. She was vengeful and had a very nasty way of getting her own back. All of a sudden it made sense to me. Overpopulate the land and she will send a famine to cut down the numbers of the "parasites" that were inhabiting her land.

Turn a forest into a concrete jungle and supress nature and she will send an earthquake or a mudslide or a tornado or a hurricane to destroy what you have
built. I would take notice of buildings that had been abandoned and notice how quickly mother nature would reclaim them. In no time at all vines would grow up the bricks, weeds would be poking out of the windows and in short order the building would be a haven for flora and fauna. I would notice how in walks through the concrete jungle that a weed would push up through the concrete or
the tarmac..... no matter how we tried to control mother nature she always found a way to usurp our authority. Mess with mother nature by whatever means, and she will find a way to take her revenge. Feed an animal to an animal and therefore turn that animal into a cannibal against its will and she will in turn destroy you with a disease that will stop your foolhardy practices. We can believe whatever we want to believe, but in the end, it is mother nature, with her power and her balance of life, that will prevail and when we stupid humans have destroyed ourselves with our arrogance and our narrow mindedness the weeds will begin to grow up through the concrete and the plants will flourish on the compost of our rotting remains and the balance of nature will be restored, and with our demise the green man will move a quiet shoulder and turn his face to smile.

Britty