Thistles - Image of the Week #IOTW

This is my Image of the Week #IOTW the one I like best.  Thistles are terrible invasive weeds but the bees and butterflies love them and I always try to capture a few in flower before cutting them down in the hope that a few fewer seeds will mean they don't take over our hedgerows and fields and leave room for some of the other lovely wild flowers and plants.

The theme for #IOTW  at Truly Madly Kids this week was 'Flash' I tried to take some different flash shots, but wasn't really happy any, here are a few of them.  Obviously needing to do more work on this.

Bird nest in hedge, hay rake, lavender, blacksmiths drill

Father's Day - Image of the Week #20

It's Father's Day tomorrow and Image of the Week #IOTW  at Truly, Madly Kids,  is keeping to this theme.  My Dad is no longer around and even when he was, we didn't make a big fuss of Father's Day.  A card to mark the occasion was all that was required.  My dad loved his holidays and even in the 1960s when we had very little money we always went away camping every summer.  By the way, that's me with the cool shades and the blow up beach ball in the background.

I searched around to see if I could find an image of my husband, Brian, and our two sons, this was about the best I could do.  It was taken in Dublin when we visited there, taking my mother along,  the summer after my Dad died.  In their teens, music was a real connecting point between Brian and the boys so this is quite an appropriate photograph.

Great Tit Nesting Box - Image of the Week #18

Telling a Story - is the prompt for the Image of the Week at Truly Madly Kids, here is what Penny says: "Sometimes a photograph has many things about it that make it precious. It could be the setting, it could be something in the frame, it could be the reaction on a face to something, or even something lurking in the background of a shot. These are the images that tell a story."

My story is all about a little family of Great Tits who chose to nest in the hollow framework of our tractor bale spike, as you can see it makes the perfect nest box!  We enjoyed watching the parent birds flying backwards and forwards carrying insects to feed their young.  The birds have now fledged so must have been quite large when I took these photographs.

There were better photographs than the one I have chosen for the Image of the Week, but this is the one I felt was most likely to 'tell the story'.  Here are few of the others below:

Image of the Week #15 - Macro

Moss

Lichen

The theme for Image of the Week #IOTW at Truly Madly Kids this week is MACRO.  I love to take Macro shots, particularly of the plants and insects.  I was torn as to which of these recent images to share in the Linky but decided on the moss as the lichen is rather more difficult to distinguish.

And here are a couple of older macro photos that I particularly like.

Sunshine Images - Seagull in the Sun

I took this photograph in Funchal, Madeira at the top of a tower overlooking the Marina and captured the seagull against the bright sun and fluffy clouds.  I took it on my Sony Cybershot HD, no fancy camera, no complicated settings, just the right moment.

I'm entering this into the Sunshine Images Linky at Truly Madly Kids