Stitchwort (April 2022)

A quick post from April and a patch of stitchwort in the hedgerow on Combs Lane...such graceful flowers which always photograph well...

June on the Southwell Trail - Part 2 (2021)

As I mentioned in my previous post, much of the trail photography during June was less organised than previous years and mostly I responded to moments of inspiration or aspects that simply caught my eye. 

In particular I noticed how the dappled sunlight highlighted the creamy white flowers of the umbellifers* especially when set against areas of deep shadow. These were some of the results: 

*I note that the term umbellifers is now out-of-date and has changed to the more scientific sounding Apiaceae family which includes hogweed, cow parsley and pignut, to name but a few. 

Deciding which type Apiaceae I was looking seemed a task beyond the photography but I retained the term umbellifers for being more descriptive of the flowers which arrange themselves in umbrella-shaped umbels.

Poppies and Other Wildflowers (July 2020)

One of the local fields was temporarily taken over by a combination of poppies and mayweed during July. This is unusual as this field is normally very active with crops most years. This led me to wonder whether the virus hiatus had extended to farming activities as well as....just about everything else!

By the first week in August, however, the field had been reset and the ‘weeds’ were ploughed into the ground. Before that happened I manage to take some images for the record although it was a little difficult to get a good angle from the footpath that runs only on one side of the the field. 

These were some of the results, starting with the poppies:

I then moved on to the mayweed with their characteristic 'shuttlecock' look:

I also came across a nice patch of harebells during July...a lovely delicate flower....great for photography, although the stooping and getting down to ground level gets harder each year!

Field scabious and cranesbill bloom a little higher off the ground and are easier to photograph. The red dotted insect on the scabious is a burnet moth - they seem to particularly enjoy field scabious and stay very still, unbothered by any activity around them. Perhaps their confidence is drawn from their deadly ability to produce hydrogen cyanide which makes them taste bad and in large quantities can kill a predator...the red dots are a warning!   

 

June on the Southwell Trail - Part 2

In addition to yesterday’s post featuring monochrome images from the Southwell Trail, is a further selection of photographs taken during the month of June. The first set features the colour versions of the local barley crop. I particularly liked the swaying textures of the barley in the fields and I tried to capture a sense of this in a number of the shots below:

The very warm and sunny weather at the end of May was replaced by more rainy days during June. I recorded some of this weather from the trail and focused on some close up work including the wildflowers (dog rose and bramble) and greenery both in the undergrowth and from the trees: