Times Square

The country bumpkin was in NYC the other day. I bought myself a new wide angle lens at the B&H Superstore. It was a dreary, drizzly day but I couldn't resist taking some sample shots. And then, because they were so gray, I couldn't resist subjecting them to the extreme hdr treatment:

Pentaglottis sempervirens

Another ubiquitous little plant that I like. Often referred to as 'that weed over there' most people seem to have forgotten that its common name is 'Green Alkanet'. The little blue flowers are a huge success with the bumble bees, and can apparently be used to garnish salads and drinks...

Towards midsummer the plants grow too high for their own good:



The one above has collapsed under the heavy weight of some summery rain drops.

Visit Today's Flowers hosted by Luiz, Denise, Denise, Laerte and Valkyrien for your weekly fix of blossoms.

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.

Stormy Oxfordshire

This is pretty much as dramatic as the sky gets in Oxfordshire:



Yes, I know, not very dramatic. But it rained soon thereafter.

click back to Skywatch Friday for a good dose of skies from everywhere.

Peruvian crazy clouds

Some early evening weather from the Amazon basin arriving in the cloud forest on the eastern Andes flank:




Visit Skywatch Friday to enjoy pictures of the sky from every possible perspective.

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.

Springwatch 3

The cherry blossoms are out - so it's flower photo time. The other day I managed to sneak out into the garden between work and work to catch the last bit of light:



But there are plenty of daffodils around, too:



There are all sorts of gorgeous flowers at Today's Flowers hosted by Luiz Santilli Jr - enjoy.

Radcliffe Square

Most of the time the weather here is either grey and dry, or grey and wet. The other day it was grey and wet. I stopped on my way home on Radcliffe Square - it was drizzling quite nastily but nobody (including me) had a brolly.



I was tempted to seek refuge in the Radcliff Camera, which is a Library -



it looked quite cosy, as you can see if you click on the pic, but then I remembered how dusty it is inside and so I scuttled off into the wet dusk.