Here are some recent Spring photos to cheer you.
Spring 2022
Category: nature
Seedheads and Sunshine
A few straggling seeds still holding on after Storm Arwen. They look like they have been hand-painted by woodland folk!
The seedheads still offer a refuge for insects, but there is little left in the way of food for birds.
Fading glory.
About to face the wrath of Winter.
A visit to Kew Gardens
Intro
The Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew in London is a spectacular place. It is the largest botanical garden in the world – 300 acres of it to be precise. It is a UNESCO World Heritage site and houses some 50,000 plants. It is a beautiful oasis of calm in a busy city and is also home to a lot of wildlife. There are many attractions and you can never see it all in a day. We decided just to go with the flow and wander, taking in a few ‘must sees.’
We started with the Rhododendron Walk or Dell. There are colours of rhododendrons in every conceivable colour and size, but interspersed along the walk are all manner of plants. Here the soft light emerges through the canopy of a large acer tree.
Among the damp, coolness of the dell were these beautiful yellow irises.
What I really like are the little paths leading off the main one, where you can have an adventure and make new discoveries. It is like a giant secret garden. There are many areas that have wildflowers too. Such as this cow parsley meadow.
The Giant Pagoda was built for the founder of the gardens – Princess Augusta and was completed in 1762.
In the Japanese Garden, there was a Peacock strutting about enjoying the attention.
I think my favourite place has to be the Temperate House. There are all kind of beautiful plants inside. We didn’t go into the Palm House on this visit, but that too is an amazing place if you can stand the heat!
The Temperate House was looking more established than our last visit. Here is a view of part of the giant glass house from the inside.
Did you know that ferns appeared on earth over 360 million years ago? Long before the dinosaurs...
A beautiful Bird of Paradise flower.
Back in the garden, a Eucalyptus tree grows lazily across a path at a 45 degree angle.
More cow parsley.
The tulips were still out at the end of May, following the coldest May in 25 years.
One of two lions overlooking a lake.
A view of the lake.
Wildlife.
The Waterlily House contains the giant Amazon waterlily. In Victorian times, children were photographed sitting on them.
Finally, this sculpture caught my eye. It is called Leaf Spirit by Simon Gudgeon. It almost seems to merge with the trees when the light shines.
We walked almost 6 miles. If you are a keen garden enthusiast or botanist and want to look in detail at everything, you probably need to spend a few days there!
Honey bees and Spring blossoms
The sunlight gave a beautiful ‘high key’ effect to some of the pictures.
Can you see the pollen basket on the hind leg of the bee? Pollen is harvested and carried to the nest or hive.
Blossoms.
A honeybee in mid-flight.
A honeybee dangling underneath a branch.
A honeybee in perfect alignment to the flower.
Happy New Year
At this time of year, plants and flowers are a bit thin on the ground. So, I have abandoned my trusty macro lens and have been experimenting with my zoom lens.
From the trees and hedgerows, I have notice little rustlings and tweets. As the trees are bare, some wildlife has been a lot easier to spot. Here are a few birds I have spied recently. I hope you enjoy them.
High Summer
Another heatwave and 6 days of high temperatures and an opportunity to capture an unnatural evening glow in the still heat.
Sweltering Summer days are sometimes referred to as the ‘dog days of Summer.’ This comes from the Roman phrase ‘dies caniculares.’ It was noted by the Romans, that the star Sirius (also called the Dog Star) began to rise in the sky before the sun towards the end of July. The star was so bright that they believed it gave extra heat to the sun and was responsible for the hot days of Summer.
The rising hot air and moisture provide perfect conditions for thunder and lightning. At 30,000 degrees celsius, lightning is five times hotter than the surface of the sun.
A single thundercloud is more powerful than any nuclear power plant on earth. It has been calculated at approximately 1 billion volts.
Isn’t nature amazing?
Heatwave
The intense heat appears to give an eerie golden glow in the evening.
After the rain
These looked like emerald, fairy lamps!
The late afternoon sun is reflected in the water droplets.
The raindrops gave a sparkling, bokeh effect.
Orange Tip Butterfly
A host of golden daffodils
I wander’d lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o’er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host of golden daffodils;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.
Continuous as the stars that shine
And twinkle on the milky way,
They stretch’d in never-ending line
Along the margin of a bay:
Ten thousand saw I at a glance
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.
The waves beside them danced, but they
Out-did the sparkling waves in glee: –
A poet could not but be gay
In such a jocund company!
I gazed – and gazed – but little thought
What wealth the show to me had brought.
For oft, when on my couch I lie
In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude;
And then my heart with pleasure fills
And dances with the daffodils.
William Wordsworth.
Swan in black & white
A territorial swan with its wings arched, taken from a distance.
Floresphotographic 
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