So it doesn't always rain, then?
What a gorgeous bank holiday it's been. My plans to get seriously out and about never quite got to fruition, but I did find time to potter out with the camera. And lo, there were many blurry pictures of flies and spiders trying hard not to be photographed. Also divers images of leaves where an insect had been sitting absolutely still right up to the moment I pressed the shutter. I think they do it deliberately.
Sunsets are not my normal photographic fare, but I couldn't resist capturing this one, on Saturday evening, for posterity. It was just so beautifully still at this moment. There were a few people scattered about, indeed right behind me were a bunch of Polish blokes squatting round a home-made barbecue, swigging beer and talking over the techno-mazurka music pumping out of their car stereo. Yet this helped to make the atmosphere rather than destroy it.
Yesterday I went out in the morning rather than the evening. Didn't see much, to be honest, but there was this obliging butterfly on the clifftop.
It's a Small Tortoiseshell, which seems to be a bit more numerous this year than of late (ie, I've seen more than one). I'm guessing this is a female, since she's on a nettle leaf and nettle is the larval foodplant of this species.
I also managed some plant photos:
Wall Speedwell, Veronica arvensis, is the smallest species of speedwell, at least in Britain. The grass blades behind the flower give some idea of the scale. Needless to say I like these small unobtrusive things that you have to look hard to stand any chance of noticing. The white thing is probably the egg case or maybe pupal case of some micromoth or other.
And I can't resist quoting an overheard remark. As I reached Foreness Point, a bloke cycled past with three young boys pedalling alongside him, presumably Dad out with The Kids. One of the kids was saying "We have to go on this path because this is the path for cyclists." A reference, I presume to the Viking Coastal Trail, of which this stretch of tarmac was indeed a part.
He then clarified his point by adding, "The other path is for humans."
Sunsets are not my normal photographic fare, but I couldn't resist capturing this one, on Saturday evening, for posterity. It was just so beautifully still at this moment. There were a few people scattered about, indeed right behind me were a bunch of Polish blokes squatting round a home-made barbecue, swigging beer and talking over the techno-mazurka music pumping out of their car stereo. Yet this helped to make the atmosphere rather than destroy it.
Yesterday I went out in the morning rather than the evening. Didn't see much, to be honest, but there was this obliging butterfly on the clifftop.
It's a Small Tortoiseshell, which seems to be a bit more numerous this year than of late (ie, I've seen more than one). I'm guessing this is a female, since she's on a nettle leaf and nettle is the larval foodplant of this species.
I also managed some plant photos:
Wall Speedwell, Veronica arvensis, is the smallest species of speedwell, at least in Britain. The grass blades behind the flower give some idea of the scale. Needless to say I like these small unobtrusive things that you have to look hard to stand any chance of noticing. The white thing is probably the egg case or maybe pupal case of some micromoth or other.
And I can't resist quoting an overheard remark. As I reached Foreness Point, a bloke cycled past with three young boys pedalling alongside him, presumably Dad out with The Kids. One of the kids was saying "We have to go on this path because this is the path for cyclists." A reference, I presume to the Viking Coastal Trail, of which this stretch of tarmac was indeed a part.
He then clarified his point by adding, "The other path is for humans."