Bumblebee enjoying some echinacea flowers.

We are in the dark days still here in Berlin – lots of gloomy grey skies, and I am counting the days until spring! This is the time of year I feel most homesick, and miss blue skies, sunshine and greenery. From our laboratory window we can see a two crows building a nest in the tree outside. The one flies back and forwards with new twigs, clearly preparing a nice home for some little ones. In the evenings now it’s a little bit lighter, and many times at twilight I’ve heard a nightingale singing. It’s amazing to hear its melodious, loud song calling out over the grey, empty streets, sometimes I just stop and listen, and I’ve seen others doing the same. It’s a song of hope, spring will come! Soon the gardens and parks will be bustling with life again, insects and birds, frogs and foxes. In the meanwhile, I decided to dig up some old “garden wildlife” photos from previous years to take part in Heyjude’s Garden photography event. We have until the end of March to submit some photographs, so perhaps I’ll find some early spring garden wildlife before then, but in the meanwhile I thought I’d post some old photos.

My fiance volunteered his finger to show how tiny this pretty little frog is.

Heyjude has some inspiring advice for taking photos of garden wildlife, and I’d encourage you to check out her page. Every month she has a different garden-themed photography challenge. Here are the instructions for this month:

“This month I want to see photos and stories about wildlife in the ‘garden’ – insects, spider, birds, rabbits, hedgehog, fox, snake (!) whatever you can find in your garden, public gardens, lakes, parks. But please not the family dog!”

Like most city-dwellers, we only have an apartment balcony, but luckily Berlin has lots of parks and botanical gardens to enjoy, and when we visit my fiance’ s family in the Czech republic there is also a garden. Here are some photos of the garden wildlife we’ve spotted in Berlin and in Czech republic, and even some old ones from my Cape Town garden.

A bee enjoying a summer poppy.

The biggest slug I’d ever seen (they are normal here, apparently).

Bumble bee on echinacea.

Butterfly – these are quite common here although I’m not sure what they are called.

Dragonflies abound near the lakes of Berlin.

In South Africa we have lots of lizards and geckos in the gardens. This lizard was enjoying a drink of water.

Butterfly in my garden in Cape Town.

Butterfly in the garden.

A grasshopper and a bee enjoying a poppy.

Urban wildlife in Berlin.

Butterflies’ world

In Europe you can see red squirrels in the parks

The Czech garden wildlife includes a peacock

Another kind of butterfly

Frogs enjoying the lily pads

There were lots of frogs in this pond, unfortunately my phone camera did not have a good zoom.

Froggy pond

More butterflies on echinacea.

I found this butterfly’s spotted eyes interesting.

This hedgehog was sleeping in the garage. After waking up, he rolled over and was off on his way.

Hedgehog walking off across the lawn.

We spotted this lovely fox in the Berlin Botanical Garden.