Flowering Thistles and Bees

Beautiful shots, the last one made me smile, that little orange rear end. Those are big, beautiful thistles.

A ton of them sprouted up this year next to the house. Much more than last year. I just had to wait for them to flower. They're really pretty and they really attract the bees.

Most of the wild thistles around here are pretty small. I love those big ones, when I'm lucky enough to stumble across them.

In the first shot you can kinda see how many we got this year. They were huge and tons of them.

Next year we'll probably have more because I refuse to kill them as I love them. I like seeing these big round pokey thistles turn into these lovely purple flowers.

I don't kill thistles either, they are so pretty and the bees love them. I'd really like to have big ones growing somewhere in the yard.

Thank you AF. And thank you Caine. Always makes me happy when people like my photos.

I didn't realise how closely the thistle and the artichoke were related until I took the pic in Norwich last month and looked it all up. Moblog is good for me it makes me look things up :)
They are stunning.

Moblog is good for my brain too.

Had a bit o a search through the binternet and I think this ia a musk thistle.