Far From the Madding Crowd: East Holmes Farm

Thursday, 5 September 2013

Red Dahlia and the Small Tortoiseshell

Red Dahlia and the Small Tortoiseshell, a photo by Linda Yarrow on Flickr.

This was taken at East Holme Farm about a week ago. Their herbaceous borders are ablaze with colour and the red dahlias (they look like the Bishop Llandaff dahlia) was attracting the bees and the butterflies. Managed to capture this Small Tortoiseshell on the dahlia, making a very colourful picture:-) There is no doubt the Small Tortoiseshell has had a very good year, the best for a long time and let's hope it will continue to get better for them in the future:-)

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.