Sunny Posts

 

Lovely sunny day today, we went to Studland beach for a walk.  We saw a Painted Lady butterfly, could not get a picture of it, I think it was probably in a hurry to move on to warmer climes.  This Common Darter was very obliging, I was able to take close up pictures of it at different angles while he was sunning himself on the post.

 

Fungi at Arne

Went for a walk at the RSPB nature reserve, Arne, hoping to see some Spoonbills.  We did see four but too far away to get a decent picture of them.  This year, Poole Harbour has 49 Spoonbills, the most ever seen in the UK.   Well, at least these fungi were easy enough to photograph, they don't move around, don't get blown around in the wind either :-) 

 

Portland Bill

Last week we took a trip to Portland Bill hoping to see Little Owls which we did not find but manage to get a picture of a Wheatear, my best picture of this bird so far and saw a Seal.  

 



Nature's Architecture

On our way to Bournemouth beach through the gardens we came across this wasp nest and it is active, amazing to find this, so near the public pathway. 

 

My First Osprey :-)



I went glamour camping with my partner, Malcolm, in Glastonbury for three days last week. We went to Shapwick nature reserve where we saw an Osprey, our first one, in the flesh and feathers :-)  This picture is a record shot, the Osprey was a little far away to get a good shot and I only had my little Lumix camera with me, but it was quite exciting to actually see the bird in real life. 

 

The Ladies are Back :-)

I went spider hunting today at Morden Bog, found these beautiful ladies, some are very small, others like this one, big mamas :-)

 



 

Remembering My Great Grandfather

Today I remember my Great Grandfather, Walter Dolman, who was killed in France during WW1 on the 22nd October 1914 age 28.  He was married with three daughters, the youngest was my Gran.  His name is on Le Touret memorial which commemorates over 13,400 British soldiers.

 

 

My Indian Bean Tree

 I don't usually include pictures of my garden in my blog but today is the exception, my Indian Bean tree has flowered for the first time :-)  I bought and planted this tree about eight or nine years ago, I knew it would not flower for a number of years, it had to reach a certain height, ten feet I think before it will flower.   This tree has to be my favourite tree, it has large lime green leaves which looks lovely on a sunny day.   This is the Golden Indian Bean tree, I think there is another whose leaves are much darker. 

 

The Changing Colours of the Meadows

We went to Durlston Country Park yesterday.  The meadows are filled with Knapweed and Field Scabious at this time.  Always interesting to visit these meadows to see what is in flower and the changing colours. 

 

A Royal Visit This Morning :-)

I opened my curtains this morning and look what I had in my garden, a Royal Visit from Mr & Mrs Pheasant.  This pair are often in my garden, the male constantly makes cute little noise at the female as HE follows her wherever she goes.   I like the way they walk around, very cautiously,  as if they are royalty :-)

The Not-so-Pretty Orchid

The not-so-pretty orchid is the Common Twayblade orchid.   This was taken at Fontmell Down, there was plenty of Common Spotted orchid in the area also.

The Lesser Butterfly Orchid

I have found eight species of orchids so far this year at Durlston Country Park and Fontmell Down; Lesser Butterfly orchid (as below), Early Purple orchid, Early Spider orchid, Bee orchid, Common Twayblade orchid, Green Winged orchid, Common Spotted orchid, Pyramidal orchid.   We went for a walk at Fontmell Down on Thursday, wonderful wide variety of wildflowers throughout the walk where I found this orchid, the Lesser Butterfly.

A Lamb Amongst the Bluebells

I have just spent a week in County Durham with Malcolm, my Partner, visiting his father.  We had a couple of good walks before the weather turned very cold and wet.   One of our walks was at Balderhead Reservoir where there were a few swathes of Bluebells and the sheep were grazing around them. 

 

I have been going up North, County Durham with Malcolm at least twice a year to see Malcolm's father for twenty years now, usually we stay with him for a week.  But Malcolm's father, who will be ninety this year, wants to move down South, here in Dorset.  So it looks like my visits to the North of England may come to a close, depending on if Malcolm's father does sell his house and finds a place here in the South, possibly a flat.  We would like him to move to the South because he is on his own (Malcolm's mother passed away in 2001) and he can no longer drive a car due to poor eye sight.  Malcolm's father used to play golf but now that he is unable to drive, he no longer plays golf.  We hope it will be possible for him to move nearer to us.

 

 

 

 

Thrift and the Press Gang

 

 

We went to Chesil beach and Portland today.  At Chesil beach there are great swathes of Thrift, lovely pink carpets of them.   We went onto Portland, we stopped to visit the church, St George.  It has a fantastic graveyard which is being managed for wildlife.  We wandered around, I was reading some of the graves which can be interesting.  I found one grave, the grave of a twenty-one year old girl, Mary Way, who was shot by a Press gang in 1803.  Apparently the Press gang came to Portland to try and capture some men for their ship but the village (There was no road at the time between Portland and Weymouth, Portland was an isolated village) fought to stop men being taken and a gun was fired, two people were shot.  Mary Way was shot in the back and as you can see on her grave she died of her wound a few weeks later.   Very sad, I have tried to read the inscription at the bottom, quite moving.

 

Mary Way's grave.  I think the inscription reads:

Here immortality with beauty lies
Confind from Earth to kindred skys
Her life was short her Death severe
Stop Reader think and shed a tear



Purple and Yellow

It was magical seeing swathes of Early Purple orchids with the Cowslips at Durlston Country Park today.  We were lucky to have sunshine as it had been foggy. 

What Lovely Soft Nesting Material

On our way out for coffee, we saw two Jackdaws plucking this pony's coat for their nest.  I managed to capture one of them.  This pony was not the least bothered by them. 

I have done a little change to my blog.  I did want to use one of my pictures for the background but everytime I tried to upload one, a message kept coming up that my file was too big.  I tried to make the picture smaller but it did not make any difference, so I gave up and used one of theirs.

The Bluebell Season

The Bluebell season is upon us, this was taken at our regular haunt at Edmondsham.  I have been thinking of giving up on blogging but I have changed my mind, I will continue with my blog.  I post my pictures onto Flickr from which I post onto Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest.  I use to be able to post from Flickr to Blogger but something has changed I can no longer do that.  I will use Picasa Web Albums to post my pictures onto my blog.  It does seem a shame to stop blogging, I have been doing it for a few years now and I also want to keep in contact with my blogging friends :-)