When I first read some years ago in a magazine about mysterious Orbs showing in digital photographs, I have to confess that although intrigued I also felt skeptical. I use my digital camera quite a lot for reference photos for artwork, but I had not found any such Orbs in my own photos and having studied as a scientist I still wanted proof for myself (although I have always been interested in the paranormal).

Last year I came across that old magazine article again and became intrigued once more. I bought a couple of books about Orbs. It was fascinating reading, but I still found no Orbs in my own photos except for one odd anomoly in a photo I took of a Garden Tiger moth...however I still was not really sure about it. Then a couple of weeks ago I became intrigued once again about the Orb phenomenon when I started reading Diana Cooper and Kathy Crosswell's "Enlightenment through Orbs".

Yesterday evening I went out into my back garden at twilight and took ten photos among the trees. The full moon was up but just going behind clouds giving a rosy-rainbow effect surrounding the moon. I was in a relaxed mood, but I also really wanted my own proof and was hoping and asking that some Orbs would show. Back indoors I started going through the photos on the PC but disappointment began to niggle as each one showed no Orbs ...but then, in the 10th photo there was an Orb!!!! I actually shrieked out loud and startled the cat. Enlarging and lightening the photo showed that there was not just one Orb but a whole fleet of them!!! I counted around 8 though most were very faint. They were hovering around my aspen tree. The full moon hidden in cloud made a rosy smudge behind the tree.  (I have added the photo to my Nature Photos gallery.)

This morning at dawn I went out into the garden again and took several more photos. Orbs showed in two of the photos around the aspen tree. Fainter and fewer than last night but they were there!!

This aspen tree is home to a colony of Poplar Hawkmoths. I often find their eggs and caterpillars on the leaves in the summer. During the winter the new generation of moths will be pupating in the soil around the tree. Here in the Highlands of Scotland aspen mainly spreads via suckers, aspen seed does not set readily here. So it is quite likely that my tree is from original rootstock maybe hundreds or even thousands of years old. There is an old decayed stump nearby which may have been a previous older aspen tree. I like to think it may be a remnant from the Ancient Caledonian Forest. In Highland folklore, the aspen has connections with Faerie (see the Trees for Life website www.treesforlife.org.uk/forest/mythfolk/... )

I have been reading about Orbs showing in digital photos, and become fascinated by the subject.  I'd been hoping to get Orbs in my own photos ever since I heard about them a year or so ago but have only had a couple of moth photos I took last summer which have anomolies. At present I'm reading Diana Cooper and Kathy Crosswell's book "Enlightenment through Orbs" and have dug out my moth photos to have another look at the anomolies I noticed.

I took these moth photos in the nearby forest last summer. I'd been reading a bit about Orbs at the time and it crossed my mind that maybe it was something like that...I wondered if they were fairies with the moths... but I didn't really know much about it. However, reading the above mentioned book I feel that maybe I felt correctly about the anomolies on the photos! I've added the two moth photos to my Nature Photos gallery. The first is the Garden Tiger moth before the anomoly appeared, the second was taken a moment afterwards and looks as though something has whizzed in from the right-hand side showing a very obviously pale streak in front of the moth's wing! I'm wondering if this was a fairy Orb - that's what I feel it is anyway, I can't explain the faded patch on the moth's wing otherwise! What do you think?

I have often seen bats flying around my garden at night, then a couple of weeks ago I was absolutely delighted to discover one go in to roost in my roof! I was standing on the doorstep at dawn, listening to the quiet morning twilight, when I saw a bat fly around close above me a couple of times. It then landed on the roof and crawled in under a tiny gap beneath the roof ridge tiling. They are protected species in the UK so this was a special sight to me, as I love these beautiful creatures  -  one of my favourite toys as a child was a small rubber bat I used to keep rolled in a hankie up my sleeve, hehe!

I don't yet know which exact species it was but have contacted the Bat Conservation Trust to see if they may have any information. There are apparently 17 species of bat in the UK!

Please excuse my lack of commenting/blogging recently - Summertime is always busy with work in the garden as well as painting, so I don't spend so much time on the internet. An update to my pink-flowered runner beans is that most have germinated and now been planted out. My son helped again erecting runner-poles and wigwams of sticks for the young plants. He seemed pleased with the look of the veg patch after his work, so I'm hoping this might instill in him a liking for gardening!!

Also I recently decided to upgrade my PC and this past week has mostly been spent on sorting out program glitches/incompatibilities and having to download patches, fixes and whatnots....

We've had a couple of unusually violent thunderstorms recently. Yesterday afternoon my son and I were both on our PCs and heard distant rumbles....so all equipment was hurriedly switched off and disconnected from sockets. There then ensued a terrific storm which lasted almost an hour - great white flashes and huge crashing thunder, honestly I felt the kitchen floor shake during one thunderclap! Wind gusted up though the day had been previously calm, and then HAILSTONES as big as peas! The cats were all terrified and hid in boxes or under beds (we have three cats). Frogs leaped in exodus from out of the pond and either headed across the lawn towards thicker vegetation or jumped back into the pond in confusion. I'm not sure what the pondfish thought, the thunder vibrations must have been sensed by them quite strongly too. Which brings me to the title of this entry... "Lawn-fish" refers to the fact that earlier in the day my naughty cat who doesn't care if he gets his paws wet left one of the large goldfish out on the lawn. Fortunately my son found it was still twitching so put it back into the pond. The fish floated stunned on its side for a few minutes but then, amazingly, it recovered and has been swimming about strongly since.

The warm weather is gorgeous here this week, I've actually dug out some floaty cotton clothing I'm sure I didn't get around to wearing last summer!

Time has been flying past as usual but I've managed to dig over my veg patch properly this year, and last week sowed some packets of veg seeds I found in the shed. They were a bit out of date so I'm not sure what will germinate. There was still some space left so today I went to the garden centre and browsed the seeds -  found an interesting packet of Runner Beans which are apparently "Early and Decorative" with pink flowers instead of the usual red! So with the help of my son who has now left school, we have just filled forty-six small pots, using up the entire packet planting one seed in each pot, and now eagerly await germination.   The new moon was a week ago, but as it's still waxing it should be still a good time to sow seeds especially with the high temperatures outside :)