A Wet Woodland Walk

A cloudy and often wet woodland walk with strong winds which was hardly conducive to much in the way of nature observation. 

The winds and dull weather made it difficult to find butterflies and only the occasional bright spell made it possible for the current available species to venture out. Birds, apart from a small flock of immature Goldfinch feeding on thistles in the distance, was non existant.

The first image below was about as good as it got in respect of the weather.

The fruits of Autumn are visible everywhere now like the Haw and Hip berries below.

The most obliging of the butterfly species to venture out was the female and male Brimstone below.

Can you spot the Spider below.

More fruits below, the Sloe fruits and Blackberries.

Some signs of Autumn noticed here as these Hawthorn leaves are starting to change.

Harebells.

Wild Mint.

At last, something colourful to shoot. A Red Admiral.

Musk Mallow.

There is a theme developing you may have noticed, I have used a few of the Art filters on my Olympus E-M1. You can tell that there is not much around at the moment due to the weather and time restraints on my part, as I have resulted to such things.

This one below, you just point at a subject and press the shutter and you get five shots of the subject in a row.

I think this is Fragrant Agrimony below.

An Azure Blue damselfly put in a brief appearance.

A brief shot of a Large White was all that I could get before it made off.

A subject that was not running away quite so quickly, this John Deere tractor and drag harrows.

At least the wind wasn't going  to blow that around. :)

Flying Past

Little Egret

One of my Single image posts which I would like to do more of if I have the right material.

Painted Lady

As promised in my recent post, here is the images of the Painted Lady butterfly that I shot when I found the Clouded Yellow. 

(see previous post)

Clouded Yellow

Just occasionally one can be fortunate in UK to observe a Clouded Yellow butterfly which is a rare migrant flying in from Southern Europe. Usually only a few arrive each year, but just occasionally we get masses of them, although such events are very rare.

Yesterday morning I was very fortunate to find one feeding away on flowers on the heathland which forms part of my woodland walk. 

My last sighting of this species was August 2013.

You will notice that at the end of this post my good fortune didn't end there.

This has to be a rare image which I shot when observing the Clouded Yellow.

Suddenly a Painted Lady arrived and began to feed on the same patch of flowers. 

I was able to get both species in the same shot. Thats what you call being greedy.

I only get to see a few Painted Ladys each year and this was my first sighting this year.

There will be a subsequent post featuring the Painted Lady.