Tropical House, Wisley

fruit Processed with VSCOcam with f2 preset

Caution: do not cook cat Processed with VSCOcam with b5 preset

Nevermore! Trying out the new telephoto lens. Happy Hallowe'en and best wishes to those suffering in the aftermath of Sandy in North and Central America.

HIdcote Manor Garden, Gloucestershire, England http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JiIiDWPNBhM

Royal Horticultural Society Wisley, Surrey

Royal Horticultural Society Wisley, Surrey

Royal Horticultural Society Wisley, Surrey

Royal Horticultural Society Wisley, Surrey

Sparrow, Vantaa, Finland, Feb 2014 We were walking by some farmland in Vantaa, north of Helsinki and I noticed a lot of sparrows sitting and calling in the trees. This was taken without the zoom - I could get really close - they seemed very tame.

Natural History Museum, Dublin ("The Dead Zoo")

This is the adult female. She eventually became called "Mrs Bobby". She was far bolder than the male and would come up to you if you were sat on the terrace and shout for food. We even caught her hopping around in the house a couple of times. She actually made it all the way upstairs to our bedroom once! Portraits of the two chicks who managed to fledge follow tomorrow

We 'adopted' a family of blackbirds last year. They started visiting our roof terrace in London and we got quite attached to them, and fed them raisins and meal worms whenever we could. This is the male adult. My partner has a knack for naming creatures so she ended up naming him "Bobby". As you'll see this became a kind of family name. We ended up feeding them through the very harsh winter of 2012/13 and they were coming for titbits right up till we moved out in March this year. I do hope they are OK. They had such great characters and I fell in love with them. The rest of the family follows.

DUMBO, Brooklyn

Mystic Seaport, Mystic CT