Photography Week 39

Photography week 39 (21st to 27th September 2015) was dominated by a trip to Cornwall - see earlier posts - but these are some of the other pictures from this week.

Rainworth Heath

This is a quote from the Wildlife Trust's information about Rainworth Heath:

"Lowland heath is an internationally rare and threatened habitat, identified as a priority under European law. Despite a decline of 75% since 1800, Britain supports one fifth of the world's heathland. At the time of the Domesday Book, about 67% of the Sherwood area was heathland - today that figure is less than 4%."

Helping to conserve the heathland is a flock of Hebridean sheep. Their grazing of the course grasses increases the diversity of plant species on the heath - an unexpected find in the East Midlands!

Much of the heath is rightly fenced off and walking is confined to the pathways. I picked out this common tansy plant which is has an interesting history - more here.

This time of year the heather is fading away but I found pockets of colour both common heather (Calluna vulgaris) and bell heather (Erica cinerea):

Last of the summer greens?

A brief bit of sun provided the backlighting for these shots - will not be long before these summer greens begin to die away:

Fungi

I don't go out of my way to find and photograph fungi although it is a good time of year to do so. I came across this fly agaric (Amanita muscaria) toadstool:

Abstracts

Underside of road bridges across the Southwell Trail:

Clouds

It has been a good week for low cloud some of it rain bearing but mostly fluffy white cloud:

Landscapes - Dorket Head

Dorket Head is a regular photographic venue not too far from home. The undulating landscape and isolated trees make good compositions all year round. For this visit there was the added bonus of a tractor: