this morning

I always see these lovely photos of tidy strings of dew drops on spiders webs neatly arranged in circular fashion. The spiders here don't go for tidy...their webs produce this:

autumn

Happy Autumn to you all!
When I stood in the river last week, with rainwater literally streaming into my waders from above (yes, I had to get out of the water, out of the waders, take off my soaked trousers, hang them into a tree and get into my second pair of (dry) waders just in my knickers, brrrr) I thought it would be cold and grim from now on. This week - now that the fieldwork is over and I have to stand in the lab - the sun has come out for two days of Indian Summer. And all of a sudden the rocket has decided to blossom, after 1.5 years of hesitation. The hover flies love it:

almost over?

These two photos are only a month and a bit apart and mark the sad progression of summer towards autumn. Time seems to fly, especially with my fieldwork going on and on.



Hope September will not be cold and rainy.

For more summer visit Summer Stock Sunday over at Robin's.

scenic cotswolds

An archetypal view of rural Sunday bliss:



For more scenic landscapes head over to Scenic Sunday .

artificial breeding

An artificially bred butterfly starts its well-observed life in a butterfly house:



More artificial stuff can be found at the PhotoHunt, hosted by TNchick.

portrait from a low angle

I liked this little yellow chap rather a lot, so rolling around on the wet grass to get it from a low angle was a matter of course. I don't think the frog appreciated having its portrait taken -



For all things low go visit this Saturday's PhotoHunt, hosted by TNchick.

gull over water

I like black headed gulls. The one below lives at Blenheim Palace - not a bad place to be, but I didn't know they hang out so far away from the sea.




Happy Watery Wednesday to you all!

bees and flowers

There is probably no spot in the UK which is further from the sea than where I live. Summer life happens very much in the garden. I love watching my insect neighbours, such as this assiduous looking bumble bee:



Visit Robin's Summer Stock Sunday and Scenic Sunday and enjoy the summer.

A room of ones own

These two were very set on their own private pools:



Very close to the puddles is an absolutely stunning pond - but perhaps the Mallards thought the water lilies are taking up far too much space:



And back to Watery Wednesdays, hosted by 2SweetnSaxy, for exciting water photos from all parts of the world.

Today's flower....

...has a pale green friend. If you can name either of them, please let me know!





For gorgeous flower photos from everywhere visit Today's Flowers hosted by Luiz, Denise, Denise and Laerte.

foul weather

The weather has been terrible...and I've had plenty numb toes the last couple of days from standing around in the river, collecting samples and generally making sure all was working.

The sheep up on the hill above the river have their own way of warming each other up:



but I really quite need the sun to come out once in a while. Early yesterday evening, it did just that, and everything felt much better:



This morning all was back to evil showers, though.

Protection

I saw that on a walk some days ago. I wasn't aware that squirrels can read - but seeing that there are no squirrels anywhere near their nuts, squirrels probably can.

Protection is the theme of this Saturday's PhotoHunt. Enjoy.

In the Butterfly House

Today was a boringly grey day in Oxfordshire, so we went to the Butterfly House in the afternoon to cheer ourselves up. Thanks to a special offer we have a spanking new annual ticket for it (and the rest of Blenheim Park), even though we somehow feel we are encroaching on the rights of people with kids and/or time. Seeing that English butterflies are having a very bad year our annual ticket might be the best way to see some butterflies, though.

We had a great time looking at the hatchery first (click on photos to enlarge):

I find the pupae of Northern European butterflies don't look all that exciting and I've understood here for the first time where the term chrysalis comes from (and no, with all my crawling through the rainforest I didn't come across a single chrysalis there - just ants, mosquitos, biting spiders and stick insects).

Inside the house itself are some pretty good butterflies - the dull light today, though, didn't really help me to do them justice with the camera.

Here is a Common Blue Morpho:




And a female Great Mormon - yes, it IS alive, in case you wonder. It's just sitting on a white background:



I love the texture and luminosity of their wings:




And lastly here's a chap whose species I have yet to find out:


There are more critters on display at Camera Critters, hosted by Misty Dawn.