Along the Purbeck Hills, with the wind blowing
I thought the Harebells might be in flower on the Purbeck Hills, and indeed, they are. But it was wild and windy up on the hilltop, an unsuitable day for photographing delicate trembling Harebells and bumblebees clinging grimly on to madly-waving Scabious flowers. So I took some blurry pictures of windblown grass, and of young rooks playing tumbling aerobatic games where the wind funnels through the gap in the hills.
Small Scabious (Scabiosa columbaria) on the hilltop.
Harebells (Campanula rotundifolia). The many-syllabled scientific name does not serve to weigh it down in high winds.
Also seen: one single tiny spiral-flowered spike of Autumn Lady's Tresses. But they need short-grazed turf, and the grass is too long and coarse for them this year.
A few grasshoppers still singing. A few battered Meadow Brown butterflies still on the wing.
An old chalk quarry in the hillside. I once cantered up the side of this on my horse, cackling with laughter and clinging to her mane. (It was less overgrown in those days, and I was a lot younger...)
The half moon coming and going among the clouds, and a family of rooks(?) keeping it company.
Back along the more sheltered Underhill Path, the way lined with elderberries and blackberries. Less windy here, and the bumblebees not having to cling on quite so grimly to the flowers of Teasel, Field Scabious and Knapweed.
A few Red-tailed Bumblebees seen on the Knapweed today, so their population hasn't completely crashed. But I realised today that I have not seen a single Small Tortoisehell butterfly all summer.