Waresley Wood Bluebells and Other Spring Flowers

Although there are a lot fewer areas of dense Bluebells to previous years, mainly due to the very vigorous Dog's Mercury growth in open areas, there are some dense areas. Today's early cloudy and periodically wet weather was ideal to record the delicate  blue colour. Later we had some sunny intervals which picked out the heads of the Early Purple Orchids (around 50 counted)  and single Bluebells well. I couldn't resist photographing a very impressive Cowslip plant and the Giant Horsetails in the meadow.

 

Soft Focus Spring Flowers

Generally photographers spend a lot of time trying to get maximum depth of field and very sharp focus so it was fun photographing Bluebells etc with an old lens (Olympus 50mm manual f1.8 lens from my original film camera system) attached to a modern digital body working wide open and shooting into the light or with foliage very close to the lens (work in progress).

 

Caldecote Old Rectory Spring Garden

 An absolute delight to photograph some of the flowers in the old Rectory garden adjacent to the Church with its mix of wild, naturalised and planted species all looking wonderful in the sunlight this morning. The footpath from Caledecote to Toft runs through this meadow but I am delighted that as usual the owners are opening the whole garden in aid of the Church on the 17th and 18th May 2025 with teas etc. Put that date in the diary - by then the herbaceous borders etc will also be in bloom.

Spring Markers 2024

I have been recording the flowers out on approximately the same day in March for at least 15 years.With the warm winter, it is not surprising that this year there are more species in bloom at the moment with Cowslips, Plum blossom, Japonica, Comfrey, Alkanet all a couple of weeks ahead of last year. Certainly I have a very large number of wild or naturalised plants already in bloom and attracting insects such this Early Bumblebee, Bombus pratorum on the Mahonia.