Lens-Artist Challenge #195: Colourful Expressions

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.

Woodland floor

Here the Wood Sorrel in more detail, and below that the Celandine.

Wood sorrel

Lesser Celandine

Also the delicate white of Greater Stitchwort.

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.

Peacock butterfly

Holly Blue Butterfly

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.

Lens-Artists Photo Challenge #194 – Bokeh

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.

Bumblebee and bird cherry

The next three have all a green blurred background as spring is here and everything is greening up nicely.

Dandelion seed head

crab apple blossom

Lesser celendine

Thanks to Sofia for a great challenge.

Six on Saturday – 5th March 2022

A mixed week but the last couple of days have been frosty and then bright. Feeling very like spring, and first pollinators are emerging so bit of a pollinator theme going on this week. Many thanks for our host “The Propagator” for hosting Six on Saturday. Check out the participation guide.

My first this week is a dandelion with the first of the pollinators, a hoverfly, which I think is Eristalis pertinax. It is really important that we leave dandelions to bloom as they are a very important food source for these early emerging pollinators.

Dandelion with hoverfly

Crocuses are another great food source for queen bumblebees that are emerging from hibernation at this time of year.

Crocus

Willow catkins, again here being used by hoverflies, and they will also be used by bumblebees.

Hoverfly on willow catkin

As will Hellebores.

Hellebores

I love daffodils – and the larger ones are also flowering now – bees will use them but only if they are really hungry and can’t find anything more appealing.

Daffodil

And finally this week the frogs have pretty much finished spawning in the garden pond (this photo is from earlier in the week). I hope the spawn won’t get too frosted.

Frogs

Wishing everyone a great gardening week.

Six on Saturday – Spring is coming

One of the things that makes me really happy is the coming of spring.

A sure sign of spring is the arrival of frogs in the garden pond. They usually arrive around St Valentine’s Day and sure enough that is when the first ones appeared. Yesterday’s count was about 100!

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  Frogs

At this point we also have the first spawn.

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  Frog spawn

Thirdly this week are the crocuses. Despite all the rain they are coming through.

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  Crocus

Flowers are just such bundles of joy. Here mini daffodils also coming out.

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  Daffodils

Even the first leaves are emerging – here some native honeysuckle and a great tit. The bird song is another sure sign of spring.

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  Great tit and leaves of honey suckle climbing through trees

It is very wet though. We have had constant rain and everything is muddy. Garden jobs are well behind as it is just to wet too work the soil.

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  Muddy path and chicken

Thanks to The Propagator for hosting Six on Saturday and Sheetal for hosting last weeks lens artist challenge – Glimpse into your world.

Six on Saturday, 5th February 2021

We have snow forecast for the end of the week, but it may not get this far west. Meanwhile spring continues to show her face.

1. Crocus, the yellow ones always bring a little bit of spring sunshine even on a grey day.

Crocus

2. Willow catkins. This one is Salix x rubra I think. Always the first to show. And in recent years it seems to be coming out earlier than ever. I like the willows to be of use to emerging queen bumblebees – but this one is too early now.

Willow

3. Daffodil. Just two blooms so far. But more on the way.

Daffodil

4. Robin friend has already teamed up with a mate, but still comes for meal worms. We have also discovered that it likes raisins which we had left out for the blackbirds.

Robin

5. The bird feeders remain busy.

Blue tit

6. We have been doing quite a bit of apple and pear tree pruning. In some circumstances being quite extreme. Hoping for more fruit this year.

Pruned apple branch

Thank you to The Propagator for hosting Six on Saturday.

Silent Sunday

 

Hellebore

April flowers

April brings Spring flowers. I was interested to see differences between recent years. Here are wood sorrel flowers from mid April 2018. This year they have already been in flower for a couple of weeks.

Wood sorrel from 18th April 2018

This year I first photographed Lesser Celendine in flower at the end of January. Here it was in April 2015. It has a longish flower season and is in flower along some of our local hedgerows today.

Lesser celendine from the 10th April 2015

Fruit blossom is a real favourite of mine. Here are pear and June berry blossoms from the 20th April 2016. The June berry is covered in blossom already and the pear is just starting.

Pear blossom

June Berry Blossom

 

The crab apple is just coming out, and below is what is looked like on the 12th April 2017.

Crab apple blossom

And of course I cannot pass the opportunity to post a bumblebee photograph, as while March is when we first start seeing the queen’s emerge from hibernation (though it was February this year), April is the month that we start seeing the queen’s in any numbers. And it is so nice to have them back.

Forest Cuckoo Bumblebee

Inspired by this week’s Lens artist photo challenge – Hello April.

 

 

 

Unexpected

It is always nice when a photograph turns out not as one expected. I like the way the flower emerges from the green below. I wouldn’t expect to find celendine flowering till late February. But here it is already showing it’s yellow head at the end of January.

Unexpected celendine

It is an exceptionally early spring here and flowers are already emerging. And despite the fact that a cold week is forecast, much of the winter has been very mild.

Silent Sunday

 

Wood anemones by water

Prolific Primroses

The primroses in the hedgerow bank near our house are flowering in prolific profusion.

Primroses

There are always primroses here. The dappled shade from the hawthorn trees is just the kind of habitat they thrive in. The primroses are one of the few spring flowers that got off to an early start this year, despite our cold spring. So it may be that the surrounding grass isn’t as high as it would normally be.

So the flowers can be seen in all their gorgeous glory. I only wish I could share with you the beautiful, rich scent they were exuding as I took photographs of them this evening.

Primroses

Primroses