Far From the Madding Crowd: July 2011

Wednesday, 27 July 2011

Brown Hairstreak (female)

Brown Hairstreak (female), a photo by Lynmiranda on Flickr.

We went to Alners Gorse, which is the Butterfly Conservation site. The main star attraction for me was the Brown Hairstreak, my first. This female sat and posed for us:) Saw a few Purple Hairstreaks, also my first. They are not easy to spot and get a good decent shot of them.

Brown Hairstreak (female)

Brown Hairstreak (female), a photo by Lynmiranda on Flickr.

Brown Hairstreak (female)

Brown Hairstreak (female), a photo by Lynmiranda on Flickr.

Thursday, 14 July 2011

Silver Washed Fritillary

Silver Washed Fritillary , a photo by Lynmiranda on Flickr.

A beautiful sunny day today, we went to Powerstock nature reserve for a walk and saw a few of these butterflies at the reserve.

My Blog

I have taken the title of my blog from Thomas Hardy's fourth novel 'Far From the Madding Crowd' which he wrote in 1874. He took his title from Thomas Gray's poem 'Elegy written in a Country Churchyard' completed in 1750. Thomas Hardy was born in Dorset where he lived for most of his life and where he based the stories in his novels. The word 'madding' means frenzied and there is a sense of freedom I get being out in the countryside and being close to nature away from the frenzied atmosphere of the towns and cities. I live in Dorset and like Thomas Hardy, it is where I have lived for most of my life, my blog is mostly about nature in Dorset. I am a member of the Dorset Wildlife Trust. I will include my garden and anything of interest about the natural world in Britain.