When Skies are Grey

 I have been working from home today, and all day long the sun has been shining and there has hardly been a single cloud in the sky. So, I was looking forward to finishing work and getting outside for a nice evening walk along the sea front. But as I turned off my work laptop I realised that the sudden gloom in my  home office is not because the nights are drawing in (we have past the summer solstice after all) but because there is a weather front coming in and the sky is now heavy with dark grey clouds.

As an antidote for that I thought I would quickly post some beautiful, bright and colourful shots of some flowers taken not so long ago in the gardens at Erddig. Hopefully these images will give your day a little lift just as they have mine.

You're welcome.

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).

Leaf Litter

 One of the things I love about walking in the forest is kicking my way through the leaf litter, this colourful pile was below a large beech tree. I love the rich, warm colours glistening from the recent rain.

I spotted the lichen not far away, this plant has always fascinated me with its incredible structure. Of course lichen is not really a plant but a composite organism, they have no roots and gain their nutrients via photosynthesis and they grow on bark or hang from branches as if living on thin air. 

Lichens are truly amazing, they are found in all climates and all altitudes and some can even survive inside solid rock.

I have just looked in Wikipedia and discovered that there are around 20,000 different species of lichen and a staggering 6 -8% of the earths surface is covered with lichen.

A Very Hungry Caterpillar

 

This is the caterpillar of the Grey dagger moth, it was one of several that were making a meal of our small willow tree.

The gets its name from the black dagger like markings on its dusty grey wings, but the caterpillar as you can see is very brightly coloured with a striking red and yellow colour scheme and a dramatic black hump a short way along its back.

This is a fairly common species and can be seen munching on leaves through the summer months from July to October before they find shelter under loose bark or in rotten wood in November where they overwinter as pupae before emerging in spring as a moth.

Hurst Point Lighthouse

 This is Hurst Point Lighthouse which stands at Hurst Point near Lymington and guides shipping through the western approach to the Solent.

There has been a lighthouse here, as part of Hurst Castle since 1768 one of which can be seen in my "Still Standing" post from the other day. Due to shifting sandbanks over time a different array of lights was needed to safely guide shipping.

This is the High Lighthouse which was built in 1867, it is 26m tall and is still in use today. In 1997 it was converted to use electricity rather than acetylene.

Although the old lights (situated in the castle) remain in place they have been decommissioned and painted grey to avoid confusion for shipping.

Hellebore

 Everyday I have a word of the day from a dictionary app on my phone and I share it with my son. Today's word was "polliniferous" which means producing or bearing pollen so I thought it was appropriate to take a closer look at this hellebore which I snapped at Bodnant last weekend.

Today I spent a pleasant few hours at Sizergh Castle in the Lake District enjoying the gardens, there was lots of greenery and the hellebores were not as far on as this one but there was lots to enjoy all the same. More of that another time so for today I hope you enjoy this offering.

Fabulous Finches

Out for a walk I spotted these beautiful finches, I heard them first because they are such noisy little things.

It was really windy so their perches were getting blown around a lot so they are not necessarily the sharpest images but they are such beautiful birds. Getting out into nature, even briefly when things are the way they are right now can give an enormous lift.

Sunrise over Ullswater

I think yesterday's image was pretty special but I think today's morning view is even better.

At the far end of the lake there is a light covering of mist and on the side of the fells you can see frost and ice.

I love how calm and still the water is, almost glass like and reflecting the sun perfectly. I call this a sunrise but actually it was almost 11a.m. but the winter sun remains low in the sky throughout the day.

A few minutes before I took this shot I met a couple who were also enjoying the lake, the woman went in for a swim but the water was too cold for her to stay in more than a few minutes. I asked her partner if she was doing it as a punishment or if she had lost a bet. He replied that actually it is good for you, leaving me to wonder if it is so good for you why didn't he join her.  Of course I know why he didn't, it was too flipping cold.

An Early Start

I set out from home just after 5am and set off for the Lake District hoping to get some early morning winter sun. It was -2 C when I set off from home but when I arrived at Glenridding on Ullswater it was -6 C, my hands where painfully cold as I walked long the shore trying to get some good shots.

By now it was 8.30am and the sun was up but here the "steam" rising off the lake formed a thick canopy closing everything in. 

Despite the cold and gloom I think I managed to get some nice atmospheric shots, including these two of a small sailing boat sitting calmly at anchor.

I have used long exposures to enhance the eeriness of the low cloud/fog.

I came back a few hours later after the sun had burned off the clouds and it was a different scene altogether. In time I will share some of those but I have lots more to share from my first proper day out for ages

Gold Face

I haven't posted anything to my blog in a little while and I certainly haven't been as regular as I had intended when I started it but I do intend to post more regularly. I went to Bodnant gardens recently with the intention of getting some beautiful shots to share to get things started again.

I was fortunate that the weather was good and there was excellent light and lots of beautiful flowers on display so I took lots of pictures that I will be going through to select the best.

Given that there was so much to see and photograph you might be surprised that the first images I share from that day out are of a disgusting Horse Fly. I say disgusting because they are annoying buzzy bitey things ( I got bitten on my elbow by one)  but  since I had my macro lens attached I thought I would take a closer look at the fly that settled on the bench behind me.

I was surprised to see that it has a shiny golden mask around bright red eyes that don't exactly make it a thing of beauty but is quite spectacular all the same.

Apparently it is the female flies that bite and they will travel large distances to find a suitable food source. Unlike mosquitoes that pierce the skin and suck blood from the host horse flies have jagged saw like teeth that slice the skin and they release an anti-coagulant so they can feed on the blood that pools in the wound. I said they were disgusting...

Damsel

I have mixed feelings about these images. 

First of all I was really chuffed to actually capture them since these beautiful Damselflies (the first I think is a male demoiselle, the second is a Brown Damselfly) hardly stopped to rest in their near constant search for food, so getting any image at all was quite a scoop.

The second one is especially fortuitous because as brightly coloured as it is I would normally miss it, lost in the greenery.

I am slightly disappointed because the heads in each are not in sharp focus; the reason for this is shortly before taking these pictures I had been experimenting with different focus settings on my camera and as I was not fully prepared for these shots and having to be extremely quick them main area of focus is the wings. However, this does show on closer inspection the stunning patterns in the lacy wings and in the red one the ovipositor  is in sharp focus.

Across The Lagoon

A couple of similar views across the Lagoon in Venice. There are plenty of churches and religious monuments in Venice, I recently shared a picture of a little chapel hidden away in a side street that is a thoroughfare and today I have this interesting post with it's beautiful stained glass which is there to bless the Gondoliers.

I have chosen two views one in colour to show off the soft evening glow and the glass illuminated by the setting sun, the second in black and white and in portrait mode which I think works really well with the combination of verticals that draw the eye in.

A New Perspective

Here is another of my reflections of Venice series and I think this is a really strong image.

I have cropped and rotated this shot of two buildings reflecting the early morning sun in one of Venice's narrow canals. It looks a little like a seismograph or perhaps a colourful electrocardiograph. It also looks like it is made up of layers of paper, the top part resembling a wasps nest. 

I love this view because each time I look I see something new. What do you see?

Sticks n Stones

After a short hike to this little cove I had a bit of fun making a splash and then I spent some time experimenting with some stone balancing.

There were plenty of stones to choose from and with some of the driftwood to provide contrast (and a platform) I constructed a few cool looking stacks.  I think they look really good set against the backdrop of Lake Superior and the forest of the Sleeping Giant Provincial Park