Delights of Royston Heath

This year the original small colony of Adonis Blue have spread to other parts of the Heath. We visited on a windy day and therefore searched more sheltered leeward side of the hills and found mating pairs. The first three images show different approaches to photographing them 1. Using long telephoto throwing the background completely out of focus; 2. wide-angle lens with close up giving a suggestion of habitat and 3. including all the normal habitat as they generally mate on the ground. In the subsequent images several males 'bombed' the pair wanting to get in on the action. A few Pasque flowers are still in bloom. finally a Hoverfly mimic for Bumble bees.

Frosty Morning at Therfield

I didn't get very far before stopping on my journey to Guildford as the rolling hills at Therfield looked great in the frost and mist this morning.

Pasque Flowers 5: Bluebells 10

Barry joined me on my annual pilgrimage to Therfield Heath for the Pasque flowers and Gamlingay Woods for the Bluebells and other Spring flowers. There is a reasonable display of Pasque flowers this year with some already over and some still to come out - the snails are munching their way through quite a lot of them. The Bluebells and Oxlips are at their best at the moment and a very good year. 

Pasque Flowers Out for Easter

 A perfect way to spend Easter Sunday lying on a hillside covered in Pasque flowers. A pretty good display though some have got a bit battered by recent winds. There are still plenty more to come into bloom but I don't think the display will be quite as good as 2013 when they were nearly a month later and there were estimated to be 10,000 flowers on the hill - see blog entry

Pasque fowers Therfield Heath

 The Pasque flowers are as good as I have ever seen them this year on the heath - thousands literally of them and just about at their peak though there are plenty of buds to come. I used 24 mm tilt and shift, 24 mm prime and 100 mm macro lefthand shots)as well as my sony RX100 compact (righthand shots).Surprised at the quality of the compact - holds up well  in comparison with the expensive  Canon camera and lenses.