The Birds and Bees

Little BitternBird watchers and naturalists travel long distances to view natures wonder. Living on Lesvos has so many joys. Our close neighbours nearly fell over the Little Bittern that was standing to attention on the wall of their rose garden. He stood there for over an hour, pretending to be a reed so that nobody would notice him. Sadly reeds are not common in Pat’s rose garden so he stood out just a little. He was very patient when I arrived to photograph him, posing perfectly as you can see.

Back at our house many of the flowers are at their most striking in the mid-day sun. The Passion Flower in our garden looks and smells wonderful. The Carpenter Bees that arrive in the morning are a brilliant iridescent blue in the sunshine. As the day progresses they pick up pollen on their backs, eventually turning them almost completely yellow.Carpenter Bee

As we admired them a loud humming noise darted past my ear. A Hummingbird Hawk Moth heading to the Passion Flower Café for lunch. This was a little harder to get close to as they are nervous creatures and move very quickly. With a little patience, I eventually snapped him taking nectar from a nearby flower.

Hummingbird Hawk MothNow we have to admit that we don’t know what these flowers are. A special prize (a free coffee at our place) to the first person to come up with the answer.

Every day that we live here there is something that fills us with awe and reminds us how lucky we are to live in such a very magical place.