Take a walk - Thematic Photography

A high proportion of what I show each week are taken on my daily walk, so today will be no exception.

This winter/early spring has brought some strange things to our hedgerows.

Hawthorn branches covered in green lichen

Not that the riding school horses in the field are concerned - they just appreciate the grass.

Another of my favourite subjects every year still stands proudly against the sky.

Dead ash tree

Other trees make an arch for a distant copse.

My next shot is a bit of a disappointment as the sun distorted the shades of another dead tree,

That branch on the right has lost all its bark and is as white as snow.

However nothing can dim the colour of what could have appeared last week too.

Crocus - open to soak up the sun

Waiting for the bees and insects to come along.

If you visit Thematic-Photographic-403 you may take a walk with others.

A-Z Challenge 2016 - Wildflowers 'H'

My theme this year is wild flowers. Most of us will be aware of the flowers that grow in our gardens but what surprises me is how few wild flowers that I know.


I pass them every day but rarely look at them. Well this year will be different - even if many of them may fall under the letter 'X' for unknown.

'H' - Hawthorn, Horse Chestnut

My flowers for 'H' appear on bushes and trees.

The hawthorn is one which appears early and covers hedges in white blossom.

Hawthorn blossom

It is often confused with the blackthorn I wrote about under 'B', but the hawthorn flower appears with the leaves; the blackthorn flowers before the leaves appear.

Hawthorn, also known as May blossom

        "There stands the flowering May-Thorn tree!"

Later in the year the tree/bushes have a small red fruit loved by birds like thrushes, finches and tits.

Haws, the hawthorn fruit

The common hawthorn has a single stone (seed) in each haw. Birds help the bush spread by distributing the stone in their droppings.

One of Britain's trees is a majestic sight bedecked with large white flowers.

Horse chestnut tree in flower

And of course all of us are familiar with the game of conkers.

Conkers on the horse chestnut

Of course you have to get the conkers out of their prickly case before they can be pierced and loaded on a string.

In recent years autumn seems to come early for the tree - in June/July before the conkers are ready the tree's green leaves turn brown.

Characteristic 'browning' of the leaves

Thanks to the activity of the - 

Horse-chestnut leaf miner moth

It's the larvae of the moth that mines between the leaves.

First seen in 2002 in London, this disease which is not detrimental to the tree has spread throughout the country.

Even blue tits cannot eat all the larvae in the leaves which give the tree a distinctly jaded look.

What a shame it would be if it does not remind us of Longfellow's - 

         "Under a spreading chestnut tree

          The village smithy stands."

Attributions:

• Samuel Taylor Coleridge - The Flowering May-Thorn Tree
• Horse-chestnut leaf miner moth - Cameria ohridella - 22 July 2005, by Soebe, Northern Germany - CC BY-SA 3.0 
• Henry Wadsworth Longfellow - The Village Blacksmith

Treetops - Thematic Photography

I'm spoilt for choice this week for Carmi's 'Treetops' theme as we are surrounded by trees in the village where I live. 

Here are two of my favourites from the small wood down the road which I photographed at regular intervals over a year.

Silver birch which has 'lost' its top

while the trees around have retained theirs. That hole is the result of woodpecker activity.

Spring hawthorns dwarfed by other trees

Treetops provide good cover for small birds like this.

A Blue Tit blends in

And for larger ones as well.

Wood Pigeon in a Sycamore  

The tree overhangs our garden.

Ash trees shrouded with Ivy

I wonder how long it will be before the Ivy wins and they lose their tops like the one on the left. Meanwhile I just have to lean back in my office chair to enjoy their presence.

On my morning walks there is a tree I always check to see whether it's still there - it's dead and keeps losing bits of its top to high winds.

Dead Ash tree - December 2013

On the same walk early in the year I can hear noises coming from the top of large Beech trees.

Rookery nook.

One of my favourites is a tree that overhangs the lane.

Walnut tree

It's the nearest one to us that I know and must be the one the local squirrels raid for the nuts that they bury in our lawn.

Across the road from us are treetops that photograph well after a white frost.

That concludes my treetop tour. For other takes on the theme swing over to Thematic-photographic-273-treetops.

Vibrant Nature - Thematic Photography

This is the second week in a row that I have set out to take photos to match the theme. At this time in the summer there is a lot of vibrancy to be seen in nature. Here are some things that caught my eye within three miles of my home.

The air was full of house martins and swallows and it seems that they are practicing for the departure for the warmth of Africa.

Swallows/House Martins on telelephone wires

Above them stretch high voltage power lines; how they miss them in flight remains a mystery to me.

The haws and sloes light up the hedgerows wherever you look.

Haws on a hawthorn hedge

Sloes

If nothing else a bottle of sloe gin should ensure you feel vibrant.

Farmyard Cow

She certainly was making her feelings known and no - she hasn't swallowed the fence.

Lesser Burdock

The burdock in a roadside verge has picked a spot where its burrs will get picked up by man or beast and deposited elsewhere for next year's vibrant plant.

Common Knapweed

Here the knapweed has atrracted a hoverfly and a battered Meadow Brown butterfly. Below an even more battered Comma.

Comma on knapweed

But there is now danger of mistaking this vibrant butterfly.

Peacock butterfly

This one however as had a rough time somewhere even if his colours are not dimmed.

Peacock with damaged wings

This intruder from abroad has taken over whole swathes of hedgerows with a mass of vibrant shades of pink.

Indian Balsam

This yellow flower may have a common name but farmers are meant to destroy it on their fields as it poisons cattle. It thrives however in hedgerows and on uncultivated land. Bees and hoverflys love it and help to maitain its vibrancy.

Ragworth

Coming full circle on my tour it's back to the vibrant power of the sun and that created by man.

Power Pylon

But let's not forget the energy stored in the crops beneath the high voltage power lines.

Wheat field

For further injections of vibrancy don't forget to visit Carmi's Thematic Photographic 159