Headed out this morning to fill up the car for a long drive this weekend (then Eastercon, then another long drive to collect puppy) and then on to Claybury park, where we saw bluebells and wood anemones in flower. In March! And tonight we noticed violets in Chigwell Row Wood ( Read more... )

I enjoyed the Italian Grand Prix very much, with lots of individual battles, overtaking and re-overtaking, strategies working and going wrong. From my point of view, most of the drivers I favour finished well - though I do dislike Alonzo and would like to see Massa beat him occasionally, and Rosberg getting knocked out was a great pity ( Read more... )

Yay!

At least one decent photo of a darter.


( Read more... )

Somewhat better pictures of a White Admiral


( Read more... )

Though I complain often and loudly about the impossibility of using macro on my Lumix compact, sometimes it actually works.


( Read more... )

Down in Roding Valley Meadows, there are lots of amazing wild flowers, some of which I can name:

Purple Loosestrife


( Read more... )

I've been carrying the DSLR around recently in the hope that the good weather and the mass of flower - I never realised how evocative of summer the scent of white clover was until I walked fields full them recently - would bring out the butterflies. Unfortunately, I have yet to see more than a couple, and never in a position to photograph. On the ( Read more... )

I don't do lists of animals and plants seen, like temeres, but I do like to identify anything that catches my eye, or the lens of my camera. (For instance, the insect sitting on the buttercup in the last set of photos I posted is probably the damselfly Calopteryx virgo - the Beautiful Demoiselle, female version ( Read more... )

The last few days we have seen the meadows and lakes explode into life. Today we were on the Roding Meadows, where I do not have enough photos to do one of my photo tours (but I will so you have that to worry about). However, the dragonflies and damselflies have started to fly.


( Read more... )

There seems to be a lot of stitchwort around this year. The woods and hedgerows are full of drifts of white.

When up in Solihull, there were ramsons - which we don't seem to get around here.


( Read more... )