While I live in a small town, I still live in a town – not in the countryside – and it never ceases to amaze me of all the creatures that visit, or call my gardens home.

I’m happy to announce that I have met a FOURTH tree frog!

It took me a whole day to find this one. I could hear him chirping from somewhere in the backyard. I searched and searched, with no luck.

Then the next morning, I was out picking raspberries – and there he was on one of the canes!

I can’t get over how small these guys are! It’s easy to see why they are so hard to find!

The hummingbirds are everyday visitors now and I managed to get a few more shots.

Just look at the length of her beak!

She definitely puts it to good use.

I don’t often take picture of the sparrows, because, let’s be honest, compared to many other birds that visit my yard, they are a little bit boring.

But they’ve gotten very used to me hanging about the yard with my camera, and I can get withing a few feet of them before they fly off.

They do have cute little faces.

I love the Mourning Doves too. They just always look so polite and sweet.

Though this pair were getting up to some sort of antics on my roof.

Never polite… but always beautiful…

I’ll never tire of taking pictures of the bluejays.

Now that I’ve got decent pics of the hummingbirds, my new obsession are the Goldfinches

I hear them in the yard all time, but the best shots I’ve been able to get so far are the above far away shot in the top of the Maple..

And this one of a male and female on a coneflower seedhead. They love the coneflowers, and I have lots of them, so I’m hoping for some better opportunities.

Butterfly counts are still on the low side, but there’s a couple new to add this year.

I spent the better part of an afternoon chasing around this Painted Lady. She was quite elusive, but really wanted to be in the garden (there’s so much here to eat!) so I managed to get several good shots of her.

This Eastern Comma was not so accomodating

This was the best shot I managed to get of it before it flew off, never to return. At least you can clearly see the little white mark on the hind wing that gives it it’s name.

And I showed you a pink-edged Sulpher before – but that as at a local nursery

This one was in the front garden taking advantage of the Queen of Hearts butterfly bush!

And… you know how much I love these guys.

I was working in the front gardens when this one flew by and landed right on the grass in front of me. You can get a good look at those clear wings in this pic!

And there’s definitely no shortage of spiders here.

The above are varying types of orb weavers and are fairly decent-sized spiders – ranging in size from nickel to quarter-sized.

The beautiful one on the far right is living on the back of the shed. And I think I managed to catch her in an intimate moment.

She was playing footsie with this smaller, but similar spider who I assume was male. He wasn’t her prey, because he left not long after. I think I might have caught the end of her rendezvous.

Now the orb weavers are pretty easy to spot, but there are some you have to look much harder for.

Crab spiders are teeny tiny spiders that like to hide in flowers. They are quite often very close in colour to the flower they hide in. As you can see, this one managed to catch a snack.

As did this one. And you can see his colouring is perfect for this false sunflower.

Dragonflies are another common sight around the garden. A neighbour down the street and around the corner has a large pond.

It’s not as common to get pictures of them though. They move so fast!

Another thing there’s no shortage of in this garden is bees.

Bumble bees…

Carpenter bees

Teeny tiny bees

And of course, honey bees. There’s no shortage of honey bees around here as about a 10 minute walk away is Munro Honey – a commercial honey producer.

And last, I’ll leave you with two of my favourite garden visitors…

Preying mantises and Grasshoppers – both fascinating in their own ways.

All creatures, great and small, are welcome in this garden!