Small skipper on thistle Wind-shear and streaming cloud over ScouT Scar. Yellow hawkbit and catsear on rising ground where sunlight falls. The first thistles open to the sun and a fresh brood of small skipper comes seeking pollen and nectar.
Alarm calls from the tree- tops and a great clamour. The jays have a young family. The adults will take eggs and young birds and warning signals sound as the young jays beg for food and take flying lessons. Sunlight pours through the canopy, dazzling.
Alarm calls from the tree- tops and a great clamour. The jays have a young family. The adults will take eggs and young birds and warning signals sound as the young jays beg for food and take flying lessons. Sunlight pours through the canopy, dazzling.
Last week, a young jay must have fallen from the nest and hopped forlorn about the roadside and into concealing vegetation. Two days it was on the ground. I wonder if it's one of the brood now taking flying lessons in the canopy where the Brigsteer Road climbs toward the cattle-grid track to Bradleyfield Farm. Sunlight confers colour, blazes it out, and the adult jay I photograph has taken on a hue of leaf-green.
Flowering grasses grow tall on Kendal Race Course and a small skipper appears on thistles. They settle with forewings raised, a distinctive posture.
Flowering grasses grow tall on Kendal Race Course and a small skipper appears on thistles. They settle with forewings raised, a distinctive posture.
Each day brings forth a new motif. On Sunday, swifts were feeding low, swooping close as I crossed Kendal Race Course, over pastures and low over bramble flowers topping a wall. I'm in their weave of flight. Horseflies are biting and good luck to the swifts on scooping them up. Common blue butterflies are on the wing, small heath and meadow brown. And glorious dark green fritilliaries. On the wing, and restless. My photographs show the flowers they favour. Purple thyme, yelllow hawkbit and yellow lady's bedstraw are fragrant but attract no butterflies today. The dark green fritillaries nectar on scabious and everything on the wing is attracted by the fresh blooming purple thistles whose pollen is visible.
Forget the horseflies. Walking through limestone grassland on a summer's day, with butterflies on the wing is sensational. In the final sequence of images I'd like to share something of the experience, moving from overview to close-up. Butterflies all around me, and swifts live up to their name- impossible to photograph. That first glimpse of a nectaring butterfly is thrilling. No idea if it will linger, so the first image shows a surround of fowering grasses, buttercups, red clover, a drift of scabious. Hear the linnet family all about me in the hawthorn as I photograph dark green fritillary. Butterfflies appear when the sun shines and , if I can compose the photograph as I wish, I hope to show sunlight through their wings, the contrast between the texture of the veined wing and the furry body, the constantly changing poise and balance of the insect and the way its legs and its proboscis sink and delve deep into the flower.
Forget the horseflies. Walking through limestone grassland on a summer's day, with butterflies on the wing is sensational. In the final sequence of images I'd like to share something of the experience, moving from overview to close-up. Butterflies all around me, and swifts live up to their name- impossible to photograph. That first glimpse of a nectaring butterfly is thrilling. No idea if it will linger, so the first image shows a surround of fowering grasses, buttercups, red clover, a drift of scabious. Hear the linnet family all about me in the hawthorn as I photograph dark green fritillary. Butterfflies appear when the sun shines and , if I can compose the photograph as I wish, I hope to show sunlight through their wings, the contrast between the texture of the veined wing and the furry body, the constantly changing poise and balance of the insect and the way its legs and its proboscis sink and delve deep into the flower.
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