A very late addition to last week’s Lens-Artists Photo Challenge #196 – Humour. Apologies to JohnRH of John’s Space for my tardiness.
This little fellow has appeared in our neighbour’s field. His long legs and long ears seem so much out of proportion with the rest of his body, it brings a smile to my face every time I see him. He likes to hide behind the trees.
Here he is with his mum, and possibly aunty.
Today we enjoyed a beautiful walk in Brackloon woods near Westport, Co Mayo. The wood is a Special Area Conservation due to the presence of old oak woodland. It was full of the colours of spring. The woodland floor covered in flowers. Mossy greens , the pink stems of Herb Robert, yellow Lesser Celandine and white Wood Sorrel.
Here the Wood Sorrel in more detail, and below that the Celandine.
Also the delicate white of Greater Stitchwort.
Among the flower butterflies added further colour and beauty. First the aptly named Peacock and below the Holly Blue butterfly, tiny but like a little bit of sky fliting about.
It does the soul good to immerse oneself in nature for a little while.
Thank you to Anne at Slow Shutter Speed for this week’s Lens Artist Photo Challenge.
In this week’s Lens Artists photo challenge, Sofia tells us that bokeh “is the pleasing or aesthetic quality of out-of-focus blur in a photograph.” My 40-150mm lens is pretty good at creating this effect without me having to think too hard about it. Here are a few examples from the last couple of weeks. The first one shows lots of blurry branches from the trees behind – not perhaps the most effective bokeh, but I like the bee in flight.
The next three have all a green blurred background as spring is here and everything is greening up nicely.
Thanks to Sofia for a great challenge.
Though I am (as usual) coming quite late to this week’s lens artist challenge (#193 – They Say It’s Your Birthday), it appears that Johnbo and I actually share the same birthday. So last Saturday (our shared birthday) was busy ferrying kids to their usual Saturday activities, so we waited till Sunday to complete a lovely birthday walk. It’s great when your birthday falls on the weekend and you don’t have to worry about work!
We went to Union wood in County Sligo.
The wood is mainly coniferous but there are patches of open heath, and deciduous woodland including an oak wood trail.
And of course a birthday walk would not be complete without some lovely flowers and bees.
And the view from Union rock which overlooks the ox mountains and the sea and Knocknarea is just stunning.
A big thank you, and belated birthday wishes to Johnbo for the challenge.
This week Amy’s theme is Earth Story. As Amy says “The natural world has many stories to tell. They are written on the ground, in the mountains and rivers, and on rocks and trees.”
Mother Earth is suffering huge biodiversity loss. The photograph below is one of Ireland’s rarest bees – the great yellow bumblebee. It was once widespread across Ireland and now only occurs in the north-west corner of the country.
We leave little place for nature.
Nature is pushed to the edges.
We need to take heed, protect the earth and all it’s wonderful resources.
Love it for what it is – our home
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Murtagh's Meadow 