We have kindly been given some photos taken in a garden in the Talstr. on a beautiful sunny September day.  The butterflies were obviously enjoying the colourful flowers in the sunshine. The fungi photos were also given to us along with their identifications. This is an area where I still have a lot to learn!

We would be very happy to receive photos taken in the area to add to the website. Do contact us via the Contact Us page, if you would like to submit any photos or even just let us know of plants and animals you may have seen locally.

The stag has been calling from the enclosure behind the Bärenschlössle. I managed to get a photo of him during one of his calls.

We haven't had a dunnock in the garden for a couple of months now, so this one was nice to see.

A Yellow Cow-pat mushroom appeared under the bird table today. Here is a photo of it when freshly emerged.

A wood pigeon came to the garden today for the first time. I took some close-up pictures of it. I have to admit it is an ugly species.

I had to include these pictures of red kites as they are nice ones. This adult and juvenile were flying together, but unfortunately I didn't manage to get a good enough photo of them in one shot.

All the rain of the last week has triggered the fruiting of some impressive fungi. This is a picture of some field mushrooms growing under the trees close to our house.

Today we had a couple of sparrowhawks fly over the house and land on the trees opposite. It was interesting that the smaller birds weren't worried about them this time as they weren't hunting. I got this photo of one of the sparrowhawks landing, which shows the wing and tail markings.

Today is also the first anniversary of our website diary. We decided to choose our favourite images and moments for the year.

Peter - I've chosen another of the images of the family of greenfinches from the beginning of July as my favourite image and the visit of the osprey on the 22nd of June as the best moment.

Christine - I've chosen the moment this male red-backed shrike feeds the female a caterpillar as these elegant birds were the story of the summer for me. This was the beginning of their stay with us. We watched nervously as they took up residence but were thrilled to see that they successfully raised a brood of wonderful fledglings. My chosen photo is the proud father with his young offspring.  

We also chose a joint favourite, as the jays 'anting' was very entertaining. 

We've been trying to keep the jays away from the bird table so that the smaller birds get a chance. We've noticed a couple of the jays are looking a bit obese. Here's a photo of one of the fatties.

It's been cold and miserable all week. We lit our wood burner yesterday and today we put the heating on. For the cat obviously, not for us.

There are no diary entries for last week as I've been concentrating on giving the website a makeover. This new design is more mobile-friendly and should be easier to maintain.

There wasn't much happening in the garden anyway. The weather has been cold and rainy.

We had a small flock of long-tailed tits around the garden today, but I was too busy to take photos. Hopefully they'll still be around later in the week.

The jays were busy policing again today when the sparrowhawk returned. I saw him enter a dive, but I don't think he caught anything.

Whilst I was photographing birds, I saw this beautiful beetle arrive at our buddleia. It is a member of the Protaetia family.

In the afternoon, a young red deer walked through the garden and enabled me to take a portrait.

This photo of a adolescent bullfinch shows its adult plumage starting to appear, but it makes him look a bit diseased.

We hadn't seen any house martins, swifts or swallows for a few days now, so we were pleased to see three house martins swooping over the pond this morning. In the afternoon, we were even more pleasantly surprised when hundreds of house martins, swifts and swallows suddenly appeared overhead. It is difficult to capture the sky full of birds when you've got the wrong lens on the camera, but this photo gives an impression.

While reviewing photos of birds from last week I noticed something far more interesting (to me anyway) in a photo taken of a chiffchaff down by the pond. This looked like a poplar hawk-moth or eyed hawk-moth caterpillar. I didn't expect it to still be there 4 days later, but I went down and took a look anyway and it was still there. It looks more like an eyed hawk-moth caterpillar to me, but we'll have to wait until next year as I've collected it to breed-through. My camera says that the tree is 33 metres away. I didn't think I'd ever be able to spot caterpillars from that far away!

We only seen a Kestrel in the valley a couple of times so it was was nice to see one flying about today.

The jays and crows were mobbing him, but he was doing his best to ignore them. This sequence of photos shows how the jays kept pestering him to leave his perch, but it took three of them together to get him to go.

Yet another new bird species spotted in the garden; a Pied Flycatcher. We'd both noticed a greyish bird flying up from the fence to catch insects. It was sitting alongside a Black Redstart most of the day so we initially assumed it was the same. It seemed to have quite a white breast, so I took some photos and realised it was something else.

* UPDATE * What I'd originally identified as a juvenile great spotted woodpecker, was actually another new species for the garden. It was actually a middle spotted woodpecker.

I had the moth trap out last night as it was mild. It was also a full moon, so it wasn't as good as it could have been. Even so, there was a new moth for the garden; a Rush Veneer.

The weather changed today and it was much colder.