Here's the second brimstone that I saw today. Grabbed the camera, pointed, pressed the button, waited whilst it autofocused and here's this month's competition winner for the worst ever image.
Gruditch will be proud of me!

A Brimstone a couple of hundred yards from my garden in SW Surrey, just nipped back for the camera, which means it will be nowhere to be seen when I get back!

Let's have a class for a butterfly + another insect in the same picture (both being in focus )

Do you think it might be possible to include a few categories where bokeh is not a prerequisite to getting a good rating?

I had visions of a sort of scratch 'n sniff photo-gallery but then I thought of the fox and the dog and realised that there would be no advantage in inhaling the bouquet

I quite agree that peat extraction for gardens is not sustainable, but as a member of both BC and the RHS I have to disagree with the RHS findings on their recent trials. I have tried the peat substitutes and I am not happy with them and neither are some of the experts when asked privately. (This is...

After the forest sell off debacle I knew it wouldn't be long before I found something new to whinge about. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/gardening/8333677/RSPB-call-for-a-tax-on-gardeners-for-using-peat.html How dare Butterfly Conservation support this idea without consulting its membership? I purposel...

Why did they have to go and spoil things by reversing their policy, I was just warming up for a good tirade

if you are against the government's project then you can sign the following petition: Then what, :?: Isn't it obvious that this government, and any future government, will just simply revert back to the 15% a year back door sales with no protective legislation in place. Regards Gruditch In the past...

Hi John, The Gypsy Moth is already here, in parts of London and in Aylesbury I think, an inadvertent import. Surely this should be referred to as The Travelling Community Moth ... Charles And therefore the Forestry Commission shouldn't be discriminating against it ..... I trust that The Equal Oppor...

There is an aspect of the "sell off" that few seem to be considering. The recent influx of disease to some of our woodland and forest which the Forestry Commission is working hard to control. The most recent and most damaging being Phytophthora ramorum see http://www.forestry.gov.uk/pramor...

It is a long tailed tit. In the autumn and early winter you usually see them in a gang working through the tree tops looking for insects like a bunch of trouble-makers, making a din as they go.

Elms sucker and your picture looks as if there are shoots coming up from the roots.

Jack Harrison wrote:My "media" are "The Times" @ £1.00 per day and the "I" @ 20 pence (mini Independent).
I like to keep myself informed like. Know what I mean? Yeah. OK?
Jack

Next you'll be admitting to watching Sky news

Pete Eeles wrote:An interesting development, or perhaps pure speculation!
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-12377215

Cheers,
- Pete

Oh pure speculation obviously! Martin Warren must have been wasting his time at the meetings where this proposal was discussed.

Himalayan Balsam is also a pest. I know some riverbanks close to me on the Frome, where the problem is probably too great for the injection method. Many hundreds of yards of riverbank, and up to 25yds from the rivers are affected. Forests of the stuff abound in several places, and it is a worry. :(...

For those of you dithering about the consultation paper over the Forestry Commission sell off, be warned that a similar consultation on the future of National Nature Reserves is just over the horizon. If the government get an easy run on the forestry sell off then they will be keener on flogging off...

How about the naffest butterfly shot, only showing the waist up or with its head cut off thanks to the lack of skill of the photographer?

The Crown owns the Crown Jewels and the Crown Estate. The Crown effectively embodies our nation's governance and power and thus is the ultimate guarantor of all property rights within the nation, including its own (until such time as we surrender sovereignty to faceless bureaucrats overseas). Guy I...

Thanks for posting the FC link because it shows that almost all of the Botany Bay/Oaken Wood complex is Heritage Woodland. Apart from that small crumb of comfort I would rather dread any National Trust interference if their stewardship of Winkworth Arboretum is any measure of their overall managemen...

The BC Response http://www.butterfly-conservation.org/article/9/229/fears_for_the_future_of_important_habitat.html "Principles to inform delivery models for public benefit associated with public sector land" (snappy title!) As I pointed out yesterday this was published the day BEFORE BC k...