Heather

@heatherewing.bsky.social

363 Followers 227 Following

Gardening by the sea, slow living, macramé and mindful crafting, watching the birds.

The full moon rising over the fuel jetty in Portsmouth Harbour on Tuesday evening. The moon has a rosy glow. The tide was about halfway in so a large expanse of wooden supports for the pier is visible, with the oil pipeline running along the top and water in the foreground. The photo's taken from water level as I was on a boat in the marina.
A Jersey Tiger moth with its wings open. The top half is brown with a cream kind-of-tiger-stripe and the lower half is a warm orange with three brown dots on each side. It's sitting on a long buddleia leaf (not really sitting, it touched down there for a fraction of a second) with a purple buddleia flower to the left and the background is a close-board wooden fence.
TWO Jersey Tiger moths feasting on the buddleia in my garden, one in the foreground and one on the flower, out of focus, in the background.
A stunning Jersey Tiger moth on a lilac-coloured buddleia flower. The moth - wings folded - is a triangle shape with cream coloured veining on a deep brown background. Very striking.
The UK’s highest concentration of datacentres is in Slough, which is served by Affinity Water. About 125 datacentres are proposed or under construction in Affinity’s region, much of which is subject to a hosepipe ban. In May, the company told MPs that some of these datacentres were requesting up to 3m litres of water a day, equivalent to the peak water demand of 3,500 homes.
A young robin, still in juvenile speckled plumage, perching on the edge of a plant pot. It's been following me around watching me water the garden and getting closer every day while I have my morning coffee.
The late Dame Penelope Keith as Margo Leadbetter in The Good Life. She's wearing a floaty turquoise dress with a matching headscarf and is on the phone to Barbara and Tom while Gerry tries to fix their generator.
An article from Science Now magazine from 1982. The image is an aerial of a harvester in a dry, dusty field. The headline reads The Desert Effect. Text: The destruction of forests and the burning of fossil fuels could herald the dawning of a new climatic age, with a devastating effect on world farming.
A clump of tiny purple blossoms on a callicarpa 'profusion' shrub. Zoom in to see the tiny spider hiding underneath!
In the foreground the egg-yolk-yellow evening primrose flowers are opening. They start out a pale yellow, getting darker and in the morning they'll fade to a lovely peachy orange. The California poppies in the background are a mix of summer sorbet, a pale raspberry, and the traditional orange flowers.
A bowl of granola, English strawberries and blueberries with a big dollop of natural yoghurt, with the garden in the background through the kitchen window.
A grey squirrel upside down with his head in a bird feeder full of sunflower seeds, eyes closed in bliss. He's worked out how to lift the lid and wedge himself underneath it. Normally he hangs upside down and eats from the normal holes at the bottom but the neighbour whose feeder it is has omitted to tape down the lid and Flash was in like a shot! Little opportunist!
A newly fledged starling discovering the absolute joy of a bath after however long sharing a nest with two siblings. It was in there for ages! Mum joins it in the video and the fledgling automatically demands to be fed, but her other two chicks have fledged during the day and she's been run ragged so she's taking a moment for herself.
A greenfinch and a great tit splashing in a birdbath surrounded by greenery.
Tree fern fronds unfurling in front of a beautiful pink magnolia. The fern fronds bring to mind the kind of big round lollipops you get at funfairs!
Tulips. Queen of the Night at the top - a deep, deep, rich purple with a classic tulip shape. The flower is just opening so still quite small compared to Jimmy in the foreground, who's been partying for at least a week. Jimmy is shades of pinks, apricots and yellows which gives an overall warm peach tone. The flowers are lit by evening sunlight bouncing off the window.
A magie with small pieces of muddy tree roots in its beak. Pretty sure this is the male. They've been building their second nest for the last couple of weeks.
A beautiful crow on top of a metal pole taking great wadges of alpaca fur from a metal feeder stuffed with it. The wad of wool is waaaay bigger than her head!
A broken terracotta pot filled with succulents.
The back of a bag of Asda's own brand compost, photographed on sale today 17 March 26. Text reads: "our professional multi-purpose compost is made from high quality sphagnum moss peat..."
The robin has claimed the plum tree as his.
Dark pink bergenia flowers against the glossy green 'elephant ears' leaves
Two tête à tête narcissi seen from behind with the sun glowing through their petals. There's a pot of muscari in the background.
A little dunnock, floofed up after a bath, shaking his tail feathers so quickly they're just a blur.
A little dunnock warms himself in the sun on top of a black plastic water butt. It's his favourite perch, under a buddleia, to watch the world go by. He's floofed out because he's just had a bath.
Pots of snowdrops and muscari against a weathered wood background.
A few egg-yolk-yellow flowers on a gorse bush next to a muddy path leading to a pebble beach and sea beyond. The sky is partly cloudy with sun breaking through.
A rustic, stylised metal frog in the foreground with half a dozen buttery yellow crocuses opening up in the spring sunshine.
A list of the birds I've seen in the last 12 months and this morning's numbers Wood pigeon 2 Robin 1 Dunnock 1 Bluetit 2 Great tit 1 Goldfinch 2 Greenfinch 3 Coal tit Magpie 2 Collared dove 3 Wren Greater spotted woodpecker Green woodpecker Long tailed tit Feral pigeon Black cap 1 Redwing Blackbird 1 Jay
A redwing sitting in the bare branches of a Norway maple. It has russet coloured wings, a mottled pale chest and a pale stripe on his head from front to back above the eye.
A list of humourous names for Hampshire County Council's gritters.
The capped end of a Pentel ballpoint pen.
An acidanthera bloom viewed from underneath. It's got 6 long, pointed petals that are white with deep purple in the centre of the flower. In the background are the tall, narrow sword-like leaves. Vibrant purple Callicarpa berries and a large hydrangea head are in the background against a wooden garden fence.
A group of 6 goldfinches feasting on sunflower hearts from a hanging feeder. Four are on the perches while the other two are clinging to the hanging pole. There are plants, a wooden fence and two more bird feeders hanging in the background.
A fox curled up in the sunshine, surrounded by foliage. There are a couple of verbena bonariensis flower heads in the foreground.
Cirrus clouds over Portsmouth Harbour at low tide. In the foreground there's a boat sitting on the beach below the high water line along with a muddle of chain and anchors. In the background, two decommissioned Royal Navy ships sit on the hulks moorings, waiting to eventually be towed away to be scrapped.
A Patty's Plum papaver. Faded purple petals with deep pink and purple markings inside.
A beautiful half-furled rose. It's about the size of a tennis ball, maybe a tiny bit bigger, and shades of salmon pink, peach and apricot The rose is in the centre of the frame. Out of focus in the background at the top there's a pink hydrangea and on the bottom third there are light and dark green rose leaves
Alstroemeria flowers in shades of buttery yellow. The upper petals have little marks in a pinky-bronze colour, the size and shape of grains of rice.
A plumped up woodpigeon squatting on a wooden fence. His belly is covering his toes to keep them warm. He's looking straight down his pale orange beak into the camera lens which is giving him a bit of a mad look.
A collage of 6 photos showing the stages of a peony flower opening. The variety is Bowl of Beauty and it started as a spherical bud this morning, gently unfurling through the day, opening to a hot pink bowl of petals surrounding a mass of pale peachy cream petals in the middle.
A bearded iris so deep purple that it looks black in the sunshine, but when you look deep into the flower the light behind the petals shows the purple veining with a paler colour in between. The beard is fully purple.
A row of juvenile starlings sitting on a red brick wall. They have their dark, flecked adult plumage up to their necks and pale brown baby plumage on their heads which makes it look like they're wearing birdy balaclavas.
A beautiful salmon-pink rose, its outer petals tipped with a slightly deeper pink. It's just ast the bud stage and starting to unfurl. The background is dark green rose foliage.
Iris rhizomes growing on the surface of a pot with green, sword-like leaves growing from them.
An iridescent purple bearded iris in the foreground with a flame orange azalea in the background. It's like someone's painted really fine glitter on the purple petals so they just shimmer in the sunlight, and there's nothing muted about the purple. If you had purple felt tip in a child's art pack, it would be this colour! The beards are egg-yolk yellow with just a little white underneath.
A collage of close ups of 4 colourful flowers. Clockwise from top left: inky deep purple aquilegia flowers really looking like a granny's bonnet here! A bearded iris velvety maroon petals drooping down, with a yellow beard, and the upright petals are a pale version of the maroon, as if the intense colour has been muted with white paint mixed in. A yellow abutilon flower - can't tell whether it's unfurling or fading. And hot fuschia pink gladioli type flowers.
The big, blousy blooms of an orangey-red flame azalea.
A toy pirate figure with a hook and a telescope, wedged in the branches of a swiss chard plant that has run to seed over winter. The photo is taken looking up into the green leaves against a blue spring sky, and the stem of the plant is pinks and white and a thick wavy shape - like you might imagine Jack's beanstalk to be.
A pale pink open-faced camelia flower in the centre of the frame with sun and blue sky behind.
An azalea shrub in dappled shade, laden with masses of lilac-coloured flowers. It's a shade over 5ft tall and it's covered top to toe.
A speckled wood butterfly - brown with pale cream and yellow spots on its wings - rests on the tip of a small spiky branch. The background is a turquoise ceramic planter.
A close up of deep cerise-coloured azalea flowers. They have five pointed petals in a pentagonal star shape with even deeper coloured feathery stamens.
A sun halo in the sky over the UK south coast. Formed when light is refracted by high altitude ice crystals.
A delicate spray of pale blue flowers against the variegated leaves of the brunnera plant in pretty dappled shade.