The trip that nearly wasnt

A day out was planned, headaches all round made it slightly delayed as to getting out but Cerney House is always worth a trip for any time of day.

The tulips have gone over and the Roses are yet to fill the gap fully, transition time is like edges, always interesting and always more challenging. So much at the end and so much at the new beginning gives new angles and thoughts to create images that hopefully please and maybe delight the eye.

The weather seemed to go against the prediction as we drove closer with clouds and greyness predominating the sky, but once at Cerney the wind blew them away to our delight and the sun favoured the brave.

A few images to show for the time but to be honest, the time was enjoyed and will be remembered with these images serving simply as triggers to bring back the smell, touch, sights and conversations.

The little house at the end of the path - renovated after a tree fell on it

 The have Roman Snails there - say hello to Boris 

One of the statues in the wilder part of the gardens, difficult to get a good angle on

 Aquilegia

 Thick thighed Beetle on cranesbill

 Another Cranesbill - I did not bother with the names, they have a wide variety of Cranesbills colours from dark purples to white and all the shades between

Another Cranesbill - thats the last for this trip

 Astrantia, also in a few colours - I liked the pale ones 

 Okay I fibbed,  another member of the cranesbill family but this one is Herb Robert a wild native plant

This lady was patient enought for me to take her picture up close - Hornets are very docile really and not agressive.

Another common 'weed', White dead nettle - and its not a nettle !

The common all garden Orange Tip Butterfly, just for once it co-operated and stayed still for a shot

And now the Roses, well one anyway.

 There is one with thorns worth calling thorns but it was not in flower, but wow, those thorns !

There were a few in flower but who can resist the archetypal Red Rose

I liked this, it was hidden away deep into a bush, as the sun came around it slowly came into sight

And finally, Iris's were in flower but enough of them from Rosemoor, except this one. I loved the strong leaf diagonals and then the firm upright of the bud.

I was with my lady and eldest daughter and while I was wandering around snapping images they sat, chatted, drew and wrote. In all a relaxing day as it should be.

A good weekend

The weekend gone is a long distant memory, such is the pressure of modern day work. It was a three day weekend to take my lady to a Botanical Art Course in RHS Rosemoor, and I got to have a three day photo break. What’s not to like.

I wont try to break this down into each day from a photographic point, some images may be against the wrong day, but hey so what. 

On the first day I spend the day at Rosemoor, arrived as they opened and left as they closed the weather started wet and improved as the day went on so a number of nice shots of leaves and flowers with raindrops

They use chains as downpipes from the gutters, I like the effect

 Bamboo in the rain

 A North American Pine. I love the 'black' cones

The small stream that leads down to the lake

On the second day, well this is Tarka country on the Tarka trail, so who am I not to take the opportunity to walk a stretch of the river immortalised in the book, one I dearly loved as a young person. In fact the very stretch of the river in the book where Tarka’s journey began and sadly ended at Torrington.

The day started off overcast and quiet but soon warmed up and out came the people with dogs, sadly no otters for me but there were damsels, or in this case Demoiselles, both Banded and Beautiful. In the main it was young males and only one or two mature ones and a lot of females, telling the females apart was not so easy as the males! I walked about 3 miles along the river then the same back to Rosemoor and then had a couple of hrs at Rosemoor again in the afternoon sun

Beetle - Oedemera nobilis on meadow buttercup

 Female Demoiselle - hard to tell which at this stage until the wings deepen in colour. Green wings are a Banded D and brown wings are a Beautiful D, I suspect this will be a Beautiful D

 A mayfly, shortlived and in large number at this time to the great benefit of the trout !

 Male Demoiselles from both the UK specie in one place

  A Geometer moth caterpillar - inchworm pretending to be a stick, but as its on a Ladys Mantle it did not blend in well !

 One of my favourite 'bugs' a Jumping Spider Evarcha falcata. They are soo cute and only 3-5mm but boy do they have big eyes, all the better to see you with! These guys are serious hunters.

 

A Leafhopper - Cercopis vulnerata, if you see 'cuckoo spit' this is one of the culprits, its a 'nest' for the young

A Hoverfly - possibly Eristsalis nemorum

The third day it was back to Rosemoor and again it started damp but improved as the day went on.

Given the garden is a RHS garden it does, as you would expect, fill your senses in colour, form and scent. The Roses are yet to reach their full glory but the Irises rose to the occasion and filled the borders with elegant stands and stunning shows of blues and violets set off by intense yellows and oranges going into browns and pale rose colours, one in particular caught my eye, Deep Black. It was, in the flower world a lot of deep purple flowers are deemed to be black, but this particular flower is truly black! Even then in close detail that a macro lens allows you to see you can see the underlying purples and blues that make it that black colour as seen by your eye.

 I love the colours here, aint nature fab when she gets her paints out !

 A fab flower, so simple and elegant. There was a field full of them.

 Big and bold, the silver edge just makes the main colours stand up and shout at you

 The details of the patterns are fab, the colours blending in to each other, so hard to capture the subtly of them

 So elegant next to the lake, a slight breeze sets them to a graceful dance that captivates you

 Now thats Black - none of that wishy washy dark purple! You can however see the colours that make up the 'black' its all about layers and refraction

There were bugs and birds. It was a nice weekend with the opportunity to be there when the garden opened and given the weather, only a few people about. 

I also had a play, one technique not used before by me, I am a macro shooter so 'sharp' is everything normally but this time I was looking for blur, deliberate blur. The first makes me think of the Australian outback with a huge heat haze, the second is more a watercolour impressionist type of thing

 Swallows, they 'hawk' along low level catching flies on the wing, they are doing about 25 miles an hr past you at 6 inches above the ground and turn on a sixpence ( old money) or a 5p piece, ( does not sound so flash ) I had my macro lens on and so was panning with a fixed focus 150mm lens - 99% of shots hit the bin, this one was the only survivor and its not good !

 Now - those of us with families will know this feeling - thats what having children does to you. So any children reading this, take heed your parents were once smart, good looking well groomed people, now they look like this and its your fault!

My lady learnt lots of Botanical Art skills and gained insights to how to progress her passion for this going forward, I took lots of images and am slowly processing them. These are just a few from 20+gb of images. 

A fine weekend for us both with quality time doing things we love and spending time together away with a real feel of a relaxing and stress free time to enjoy ourselves. Overall I walked most of the day every day either along the river or around Rosemoor, a garden I now know very well and have a great liking for. We will return as we both barely scraped the surface of this lovely place for plants to sketch and paint and for wildlife to photograph.

Cosmeston - its the Bugs y'know

Had a wander around Cosmestion Country park on Saturday, dropped the girls off at a craft fair and played with the Sigma macro / D7100 combo

Quite a few bugs starting to be around if you look for them on a sunny day. Looking forward to many more this year.

This is a Cardinal Beetle but a sub varia with the red head rather than the usual black, Pyrochroa serraticornis - smart fella, got to love the head gear !

And of course a damsel - an Azure damselfly - Coenagrion puella resting on a leaf, as you can see from the shadow it was a sunny day and these guys were not sitting around long for pictures !

The Large Red Damselfly - Pyrrhosoma nymphula were also in good number and took some time out to pose for me, nice !

This is a Soldier beetle - Cantharis rusticsa, pretty fierce if your a small insect but for us - lots of bravado and posing but thats it

Now this was a bit unusual for me - walking in the woods and got to a point where there was a break in the canopy, in the light area there was a number of insects swarming / circling quickly often breaking off and then more coming in, as they were above me and moving rapidly in all directions it was a point - manual focus and shoot to try and get anything, turns out they are craneflies, not seen this behaviour before so was interesting.

Now this is a fly a Snipe Fly probably the common one Rhagio scolopacea there were quite a few about but again reluctant to land and stay put - managed to get a couple of frames and this is the best of the bunch.

Finally a Spider, what captured my eye was not only the spider but the Fly - talk about taking a risk. The spider in question is a Hunting Spider - Pisaura mirabilis, they dont use a web but as the name suggestds they hunt their prey, at this time of the year I guess the 'hunt' for a mate was uppermost in its mind and the fly was lucky !

This is what the prey normally sees last thing before the lights go out !

In all a nice few hrs wandering looking for bugs, a few odd looks from people and a few snippets passed on to educate the passer by, one gent with his lady and children now knows that Damselflies fold their wings along their body and Dragonflies hold them out at 90 degrees to their body, something he did not know then and does now and can amaze his young children with to help them develop an interest in wildlife, very satisfactory to do that.

Helping out at Slimbridge

I had a day helping out at Slimbridge on Friday, the company I work for does volunteer days with various charities and this was a chance to have a day at Slimbridge Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust working on the environment. So, a day not at work, a day at Slimbridge and some work that adds value to the habitat and the WWT - whats not to like.

The work was removing segdge from a duck drive and replanting it elswhere, the Water Vole studies have shown that where the vole survives winter best has river banks with sedge growing, the early growth and I suspect the shelter it gives overwinter to young shoots and early spring growth seems to be a deciding factor in voles ability to survive in that area.

After the work - we had time for an hr or so to wander around, it was very quiet so a great opportunity to have a wander. A few pictures ftrom that time. None from the work.

The cranes from the re-introduction scheme, I did see two fly over, adults from a previous years release that return to the area. Amazing sight given the size of the birds !

Another Bird in Flight shot - has to be done - more practice needed !

And at this time of year - there are Goslings - staying close to mum and dad

Mother Moorhen picked a great spot to nest - there was no angle I could get that did not have a leaf  in the way so I chose this angle as the best one to show the chicks and mum clearly keeping an eye on them and me

Still working on the 'three duck' shot to get the three in a line as a homage to the plaster ducks of the 60s

Now the chicks are about - so are the big gulls, they will take any they can carry away. This one was taking a keen interest in some but parents were watching and not giving it the opportunity

I do like Jackdaws, this was clearly a pair and he was being very protective, some mutual preening was going on - I got fairly close but was under fierce scrutiny all the time

In all a great day with lots of fun and some satisfying work that had real value.

Parc Slip on Saturday and Dyffryn on Sunday

Yesterday went to Parc Slip nature reserve, saw my first dragon of the year, Libellula depressa - Broad Bodied Chaser/ Darter

Had a afternoon at Dyffryn today - was a sunny but breezy afternoon.

A few images from the day, as spring moves towards summer more 'bugs' are around just a few images.

A Common Blue Butterfly - Polyommatus icarus

Sloe or Hairy Shield Bug - Dolycoris baccarum

Nomada fulvicornus

small fly on seedhead

Dandelion Seed head

 May put more up later. The Acers are in glorious colour so I will process a few of those and add them later

Where do the days go

Blimey, I think a change in process is required here, instead of waiting for me to have done things and have lots to put up - its time I moved over to little and often.

Ignoring all the last two months or so - this week I decided to give the Sigma macro lens a present - I got a 2nd hand Nikon D7100 for it to play with, set it up and took a few shots - this is a 50% of the full frame of the .jpg straight out of the camera, fairly please with it.

A hoverfly in flight, they are about 10mm long - Platycheirus albimanus. No common name that I am aware of.

I will post more later when the rain stops !