Fly Me To The Moon - August 2018

What a difference a week makes! After last week's deluge of rain, the glorious summer weather had returned, and I thought I'd kick off this week's article with something a little different.

This was one of those throwaway shots you take when you're waiting for something to happen. However, when I saw it on the computer monitor, I liked it much more than I had when I viewed it on the back of the camera. It has definitely got something about it, and with the holiday season upon us, probably has some commercial value for my stock collection.

Courtship - August 2018

When something did happen, it was quite interesting. The male Wood Pigeon (Columba palumbus) on the left was performing an elaborate dance for the female. The dance was a high wire like exhibition of complicated spins combined with lots of head bobbing, and fan tailing, and couldn't fail to impress...

Rejection - August 2018

...unfortunately, seemingly it did fail, and the female flew off leaving the male to look on forlornly!

Coneflower Collector - August 2018

The Coneflowers (Echinacea) were at their best at this time of year, and the Honey Bees (Apis mellifera) were taking full advantage of them.

Waiting Gatekeeper - August 2018

While there were lots of Bees buzzing around the garden, there weren't many Butterflies, this Gatekeeper Butterfly (Pyronia tithonus) being only one of a handful I saw all morning.

Cotton Wool Factory - August 2018

While the sky had been completely clear, halfway through my photo shoot I noticed that there were some unusual cloud formations taking place. There were hundreds of these small cotton wool type clouds...

Floating Away - August 2018

...and with very little wind to propel them, they seemed to have arrived out of nowhere.

Engulfed - August 2018

As you can see, the Moon had become surrounded by them!

Yellow Pansy - August 2018

The remainder of my photo shoot concentrated on flora, and in particular, the prettiest flowers in the garden seemed to be the Pansies (Viola tricolor). There were lots of them in a number of colours, like this yellow variety with a purple centre...

Blue Pansy - August 2018

...a multicoloured blue variety...

Purple Pansy - August 2018

...and a very dark purple variety.

Herb Robert - August 2018

My favourite weed, Herb Robert (Geranium robertianum), had returned after an initial outing in Spring, and was looking every bit as pretty as it usually did.

Morning Glory - August 2018

Another favourite of mine this year is the Morning Glory (Ipomoea purpurea), which has put on a particularly nice display in both mine and dad's garden.

Bramble Bounty - August 2018

The Bramble (Rubus fruticosus) bushes are now coming into their own, with lots of fruit on display, although I wasn't tempted to eat any of it after seeing lots of Flies and Snails taking nibbles at them.

Sterbai Pair - August 2017

Finally this week, my wet pets. I haven't had time for any fish photography this week, so here's a shot of a pair of Sterba Corydoras (Corydoras sterbai) from almost exactly 12 months ago. They're fantastic fish and are doing great in their 30 gallon planted community aquarium. They are now about double the size they were when I took this picture too!

So, this week I went with Fly Me To The Moon as my Image of the Week, mostly because it was a simple point and click shot I took while waiting for something to happen, and it turned out that I really liked it...