Beautiful Bluebells

 

You know that feeling when you look under a cushion and find a £20 note that must have fallen out of your pocket unnoticed? No nor do I, it is more likely to be a till receipt or a tissue in my house. But just imagine how good it would feel. Well that is sort of how I felt earlier today when I picked up my camera to get a couple of macro shots of a mysterious bug on our garden wall (more of that at a later date). After I had got a few decent shots I scrolled through to find a load of pictures from a recent day out that I had forgotten I had, then to make things even better I found a load of pictures from a day out before that too. I was so pleased I could hardly wait until I finished work to upload them.

So although the bluebell season has ended I still have a few pictures that I haven't processed yet, I don't want to overload this post with too many pictures so I will spread them over a day or two. Unlike my last post which was from a walk in Boilton Woods these were taken at Burton Mere, I think you will agree that these are quite special, such beautiful flowers and now they are gone for another year it is nice to still be able to enjoy their beauty.

I am so grateful for the beauty of nature and I am grateful that I found these almost forgotten images (I would have liked to find £20 too).

Bluebell Wood

Here are a couple more woodland shots from Boilton Woods 

Looking at these pictures the smell of the beautiful flowers comes flooding back.

In The Shady Woodland

I love walking in the woods in the early morning. The sound of birdsong, the sunlight through the canopy creating a patchwork of light and shade and in spring the sight and smell of bluebells forming a carpet of green and blue.

Did you know that the native bluebell is a protected plant? in the UK if you remove bluebells from the wild and you are caught selling them on for personal gain you can be fined £5,000 per bulb!!!

Did you know that every part of the bluebell is poisonous? It is best just to look on and enjoy their delicate beauty and breathe in the wonderful fragrance.

Did you know that in ancient times bluebells were used to make the glue that stuck feathers onto the shaft as flights for arrows?

You Know Spring Has Arrived When...

This morning we were blessed with beautiful clear skies and glorious early morning sunshine. It was a cold start to the day but definitely worth the effort of getting up and out early to capture the early sun on theses beautiful bluebells in the Gorse Covert at the RSPB reserve at Burton Mere.

I always look for the emergence of bluebells to signal that Spring has truly arrived. I have lots of happy memories of walks in woodlands where there were carpets of native bluebells and although this display is not as dense as some of those I grew up with it is still heartwarming and a boost to the spirits.

Pink, White & Blue

Canon 100mm f 1:2.8

ISO 100   f/3,5   1/160 sec

ISO 100  f/3.5   1/100 sec

ISO 100  f/3.5  1/200 sec

So actually it is blue, pink and white but I don't think it matters what order I list them they're all really beautiful, but I think they're in my order of preference. 

I hope you like them too.

I really like this time of year when there is so much new life and vibrant colour in our gardens. It helps put the cold and dreary winter months to the back of my mind and I can look forward to the warmer months which offer more opportunities to get outdoors.

Like The Clappers

Canon 100mm f/1:2.8   ISO 100  f/4.0   1/80 sec

When we look at Bluebells, as a rule we look from above or perhaps from the side to take in the mass of colour or the beautiful bell shaped flowers but do we stop to look closely at the detail?  

In case the answer to that question is no take a look at the pictures that I have shared today. With the benefit of my macro lens and with my camera securely mounted on a tripod I can show you the wonderful interior of the bluebell with its clapper like stamen with their sugary pollen coating. Isn't it wonderful the way the petals peel back in that bell shape to expose the heart of the flower, enticing bees and other pollinating insects to do their work to ensure beautiful displays of these native beauties year on year.

Bluebells

Canon 100mm f/1:2.8  ISO 100   f/6.3   1/160 sec

I had intended to share some of my pictures of the carpet of Bluebells in the woods at Burton Mere but when I was trying to choose I was a little disappointed with them because although the bluebells make a fantastic display there is also a lot of greenery that detracts somewhat from the flowers.  The green was that sticky weed, like velcro which happens to be called "Sticky Weed" or more properly Galium aparine. There was masses of the stuff and it spoils the overall effect of the pictures so I may have to try again to get some better shots.

So instead I decided to share a couple of macro images which are, I think, really beautiful.  You don't have to be a genius to see that the two pictures are of the exact same flower and the camera settings for each shot are identical. There is a slight difference in the angle but the principal difference is the lighting with the first image lit solely by the sun, from behind while the second is also lit from in front using a small hand held torch.

I really like both images, they have different qualities, I like the colour of the flowers better in the second image but I like the background effect in the first. If you have a favourite why not leave a comment, and let me know the reason for your choice...

Return of the Native

Native English Bluebells that is (in case you were thinking I was referring to Thomas Hardy's classic novel).

You may remember that I recently went to Boilton Woods in Lancashire to find some bluebells and I posted a few pictures here on my blog. Well last week at Bodnant Gardens I found a few more late blossoms hidden away among the shrubs. While there were lots of brightly coloured azaleas and other plants I was really pleased to find these gorgeous bluebells and knew that they would find their way into my blog. 

I hope you think they are worth sharing...

A Carpet of Blue

Yesterday I commented that I was a little disappointed at first by the lack of bluebells in Boilton Wood. A few minutes into my walk however I was treated to this beautiful display. The early morning sun cast some gentle shadows and lit up the lovely blue carpet of delicate flowers.

There are so many flowers and so much blue it really lifted my spirits on this wonderful woodland walk.

If you are feeling down, or at a loose end this weekend why not get out into some woodlands wherever you are and see what treats nature has in store for you. I promise that it will be worth the effort. 

In The Ancient Woodland

Over the past few days hopefully you have enjoyed my posts of woodland creatures (if you haven't seen them why not take a few minutes to have a look). The main reason though that I had got up early to go to Boilton Woods was to see the display of Bluebells. 

I was a little disappointed to begin with as I walked down the steep wooded path because there was not the expansive carpet of flowers that I had hoped to see. However as I walked further into the woodland I was treated to a fantastic display of flowers spreading up the wooded hillside. 

I have some great pictures to share and as a teaser I have decided to post this beautiful picture of an isolated group of three stems. I love the way the morning sun lights up the delicate bells and the way the blue flowers stand out against the soft green mossy log. If you like this shot (and even if you don't) please come back tomorrow to see some more from my early morning photo shoot at Boilton. 

Songs From The Wood

I never tire of photographing Robins. They have such great characters, they're bold, inquisitive and sometimes cheeky. I love these shots because of the lighting, the texture of the mossy log and the green and blue background from the massed bluebells on the slope behind.

I know lots of you like to see these pictures too so I will keep on snapping Robins whenever I get the opportunity.

A Retrospective

                             

 

Regular visitors to my blog will have seen some or all of the above pictures before and while I would not normally repeat post pictures (because I have so many unseen images to share) there is a good reason for doing so today.

I recently signed up to test a new product on the basis that I would then post a review about the product once I had received it. 

This is a first for me and probably not something I will do often because the real focus of my blog is the pictures that I love to share, and that is why I have posted a large selection today.

So what was I testing? It was a new photobook from Saal Digital. 

I have created a few photobooks in the past with very different results and so I was interested to see what the guys at Saal Digital would come up with. The pictures above are a selection of the shots I included and I had a great time creating a shortlist and finally narrowing that list even further for pictures to include. I have so many images saved digitally but they always look better in print than on the screen and so I picked some of my favourite shots or pictures that have a special meaning to me. Eventually I had a long list of almost 200 pictures and I narrowed it down to around 70 before settling on the 40 I finally included in the book.

So having made my basic selection I went to the Saal Digital site and got started. This involved downloading the design software which allowed me to upload my images to the project.

There is a range of different options to choose from for example page size/orientation, glossy or matte finish, padded covers, leather covers and the number of pages. There are also lots of good looking and easy to use templates and you can even choose to purchase a stylish gift/presentation box to keep your project looking good.

I chose the 29cm x 19cm landscape format book and I opted to keep things simple and designed my own layout rather than use one of the many templates. I also chose a matte cover but glossy pages.

The whole process was really straightforward and intuitive; adding the pictures was very easy and there is a helpful feature which assesses the quality of the image to make sure it will look good once it is printed and there is an optional grid feature which is really helpful aligning the image on the page.

It is possible to print images across a full double page spread and the book folds flat so that pictures printed in this format look just as good as those on the single page. I used this feature for a few pictures and they look stunning.

It is possible to add text and you can choose different coloured or textured backgrounds either for individual pages or you can apply them to the whole project, whatever you think shows your pictures off best.

I started with a basic 28 page book but added a few extra pages taking it up to 32 in all, I could have added more but I held back because I also opted for the presentation box which comes in either white or anthracite. It is a really sturdy good looking box with foam padding to keep the book secure. It is a really nice finishing touch and would be great if you are getting the book as a gift or for a professional presentation but at £20 I think if I were doing this again just for myself I would add more pages rather than get the box.

Having uploaded the pictures and finalised my project I received an email telling me that my project had been uploaded and from there it was easy to track its progress. I completed my book at 22.03 on a Wednesday evening, the project was released for production at 22.06 and completed by 10.42 the following morning and ready for shipping an hour later. I was really impressed  by that but to be honest I was a little anxious about whether that was too quick and what the quality would be.

A week later the book arrived (coming from Germany and over a bank holiday I thought that was pretty good too) but I always get quite impatient waiting for things so I was pleased when the postman knocked today and I opened up to see my book.

The quality is excellent and the finish is really professional. Pictures are printed on heavy weight Fuji photo paper and the glossy finish means the images pop off the page. As I said before the double page spread works really well and I think this is a great feature so if you are going to create your own photobook then I would recommend trying this out.

I have shown my book to a number of people already and everyone who has seen it has commented on how good it looks, not just because the pictures are good but the quality and presentation is outstanding.

I would happily recommend Saal Digital to anybody. They are not cheap (my 32 page book cost slightly more that £40) but the quality is so good, to my mind it is good value. If like me you take pride in the pictures you take it is worth paying to present them well.

Bluebells and a Random Rabbit

I hadn't expected to see bluebells on Skomer but there were two areas where the ground was carpeted with masses and masses on them, It was like a blue lawn as you can see in the first of today's three pictures.

The other thing I wasn't expecting to see was an Iron age settlement but actually there are several round houses and walls and other signs of settlement scattered all across the island. Standing in one roundhouse it was possible to see the where the central fire would have been and it was easy to imagine the inhabitants seated around the walls talking about their day. It must have been a pretty bleak and unforgiving place to live. The second of these pictures shows the remains of an iron age structure.

The final picture is obviously of a big black bunny, with the most amazing brown eyes. It was just resting within the ruins of an old farm building in the centre of the island and I couldn't resist taking the picture. I have never seen wild black rabbits before but on Skomer there were a few of them as well as lots of the more familiar brown that you might see on roadside verge bunnies.

Bluebells all the way

When I visited Skomer I wasn't expecting to see acres of bluebells in full bloom but that is what I saw and so I'm sharing a couple of shots taken with my phone.

Visiting Skomer was something of a bucket list activity for me and soon I will share some pictures of the real stars of the island but for now these shots area taste of wild beauty.

It's Bluebell Time

I really really love Bluebells. I have some very happy memories of walking in Bluebell woods in Kent with my parents many years ago and I love to see a massive spread when the flowers are in their prime. 

When I was at Ness Gardens recently there were only odd patches of them so I couldn't get a nice shot of a big spread so if that's what you like as well then have a look at this link which is a great picture of bluebells near Preston (and if you like that picture have a look at some of the other pictures of flowers by the same photographer, they're really very good).

For these shots I got right down to ground level and risked getting stung by the emerging nettles but it was worth the risk because I think they're great shots.

Wonderful Wild Flowers

Having posted a beautiful cottage garden yesterday I thought I would follow up with a similar theme and some lovely spring colour, so I have chosen a selection of different wild flowers for your enjoyment today. 

I know that the last picture is of Bluebells in a woodland glade, however I have no idea what the other two plants are so if you can help identify them I'd be very grateful. Please leave a comment below if you know what they are.

Britannia Bridge

Four more pictures from Anglesey today.  The first is the Britannia Bridge taken from a vantage point on Church Island. I like the gorse in the foreground and the wide expanse of "The Swellies" looking towards the bridge in the distance.

The second picture I have chosen because this weekend marks the 70th anniversary of VE day and the monument commemorates the local men and women who lost their lives during the first and second world wars.

The third picture is of a cluster of Bluebells which were growing in abundance in the churchyard of St Tsyilio's church.  I love the vivid blue colour as it stands out against the fresh green background of lush grass.

I also love the vibrant green of the new foliage in the final picture as it forms a canopy above the woodland floor.

I hope you have enjoyed today's selection.  Look out for more from Anglesey tomorrow.