Holly's Allotment

Holly's allotment in Cambridge was looking wonderful last week despite the very dry conditions. It is a mixture of colourful flowers and vegetables all with a structured yet not too formal layout. 

Sharpenhoe Butterflies and Burnet Moths

Weather is never what you want! - last year our RPS Nature Group outing to Sharpenhoe was a literal wash out with 24 hours torrential rain before the day. This year we chose Friday, which turned out to be the hottest day of the year (and third recorded hottest ever in UK). This brought the butterflies out in great numbers but meant we couldn't survive on the chalk slopes much beyond lunch. There was a strong breeze which helped cool us but further complicated the photography. Enough excuses - here are a few captures from the day - mostly Chalkhill blues of which there were 1000s  but also Burnet moth, Speckled Wood, Tortoiseshell and Brimstone. Mixture of straight shots and focus stacks, which unfortunately show defects if focus where the subjects were moving too much in the wind. A following post will show somewhat  better images from Saturday morning.

 

 

 

Progress Report 4 on Wildlife Garden

Wildflower gardens are at their best in May - June and, by beginning of July, are beginning to go to seed. I still have ragwort, purple loosestrife, sneezewort, cornflowers, wild parsnips, marigolds, oxeye daisies,  cornflowers, corn marigolds, yarrow, white and yellow bedstraw, nettle and corncockle are still flowering.

 

Aldreth Walk

On Wednesday, we did a walk from Aldreth along Church Fen Drove, round Nine Acre Wood, along the banks of the Great Ouse (Old West River) and back along part of Aldreth Causeway. Aldreth Causeway was one of the major routes into Ely and the site of an attempt by William the Conqueror to oust the rebel Hereward the Wake.

Deep in Nine Acre Wood

We went for a lovely walk with Barry and Sue around Aldreth including Nine Acre Wood. For some of the images (1,3 and 4), I used the 23mm lens, which gave a great feeling of being an insect in the woods. The other images were with a 80mm macro lens with a 2 times converter, allowing smaller insects to be captured.