Pondlife at Mapperton, Dorset

Yesterday morning, we visited Mapperton Gardens on our way to Kingcombe and spent a long while photographing the various animals on and under the water including Water Boatmen sculling around, a Diving Beetle larva and  Pondskaters on the surface. Most of the time it was trying to catch the newts as the came up to the surface- both Palmated newts and Smooth Newts plus a large number of Toad tadpoles 

Dorset Sunset at West Bay

We made an excellent choice for a venue to watch the sun set yesterday with the golden cliffs to east and rocky promontaries to the west. Taken on the X100V with characteristic Fuji colours though pretty true to my eye. Images in chronological order

Hive Beach Burton Bradstock (NT)

Our first choice of venue for our trip had to be Hive Beach - with its sandy beach, thrift-covered cliff walk, shingle flower specialities at Cogdon beach (Yellow-horned poppies, Sea kale and Sea Campion) and picturesque village (Burton Bradstock) complete with stream and meadows (insects etc to follow). No orchids anywhere but a great amount of the very local Adders' Tongue and wild Foetid Iris

Bridport Dorset

We are spending 3 nights here with friends from Cambridge Camera Club staying in the Greyhound Hotel, a very historic building in a town that still has many traditional shops etc but for how long?

Royston Helleborine and Adonis Blue Trip

Wonderful display of White Helleborines in the woods at Royston this year - difficult to photograph in any lighting but especially in strong dappled sunlight!! We saw plenty of male Adonis Blue butterflies but no females only the somewhat similar Brown Argus butterflies.