Tag Archives: Co Mayo

Lens-Artists Photo Challenge #213 – Here Comes the Sun

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This week Amy asks is to explore the sun.

I love the sun on water, the way it makes it shimmer and shine.

Achill island from Doohoma, Co Mayo

Without the sun we would not have plants. This one is a native Irish plant called the perennial sow-thistle. But I like to think of it as our own sunflower. They are tall plants – from 80 cm up to 150 cm with these glorious yellow heads and they are loved by bees and other pollinators.

Perennial sow-thistle

With the sun, comes shadows and butterflies too of course.

Wall brown butterfly

And without the sun we wouldn’t have sunsets.

Sunset

Many thanks to Amy for this week’s lovely challenge.

Wild Christmas 31st December

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Firstly, I would like to wish you all a Happy New Year. I hope 2022 lets you find kindness at every turn.

Continuing with my 12 days of Christmas wild things, today we went on a community sponsored 8 km walk to raise funds for a new community park in our small village. Despite being a grey day it brought lots of laughter and joy.

The view, better on a bright day

You may notice in the photograph above that the gorse (bush with yellow flowers) is already blooming. This plant does flower early, but 31 December seems particularly early. We also saw quite a few dandelions in bloom, Herb-Robert and the hogweed shown in the photograph below (with accompanying mating flies).

Hogweed in bloom, 31st December

At least the trees look like they should in winter.

Trees

A big thank you to all the blogging community out there for your continued support and comments. I look forward to reading your blogs in 2022.

Happy New Year

Wild Christmas 30th December

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Continuing with my 12 days of Christmas wild things, we had a lovely walk at Moore Hall today. Moorehall is designated Special Area of Conservation for Lesser Horseshoe Bat. There are a number of relatively new wildlife sculptures and benches which now add additional interest to the walk, which I have blogged about before. Bats of course are the highlight here.

But many other mammals were also present.

And other animals too, the pike and dragonfly associated wit Lough Carra, which borders the site.

Pike
Owl
Dragonfly