Wild Talk

I have finally finished my university course and so now the job search has begun! Hopefully being out of university will give me the opportunity to work more on my photography skills and enjoy myself more in the countryside! Growing up in the Downs has meant that I have always been surrounded by wild flowers and especially Orchids, this year though has brought with it a particularly spectacular haul of flowers including Orchids. This year on the meadow next to the house the Orchids found have included: Butterfly Orchids, Tweyblades, Pyramidal Orchids, Bee Orchids, Common Spotted, Early Purples and Fragrant Orchids. This of course has given plenty of opportunities for photography as can be seen below. This is a Bee Orchid, a Bee Orchid is designed to too look like a female Bee so that a male Bee will come and try and breed with the Bee and will in the process get pollen on it. Sadly though the Bee the Orchid is designed to attract does not occur in this country and so all Be...

I had the pleasure of visiting the Painswick Rococo Gardens this week to look at the stunning annual display of Snowdrops which has been open to the public in several different forms for over a century, at first this was one afternoon every spring when it was opened to the local people of Painswick but has now become a spectacle which opens throughout the growing season and attracts people from far and wide. Painswick itself is a quintessential Cotswolds town with its beautiful honey buildings and the church is stunning with many Yew Trees growing within the church yard; the legend suggests that there are just 99 Yew Trees and states that if the 100th tree was ever to be planted then the devil would destroy it! Although this was then proven wrong when in a process to mark the millennium every church in Gloucestershire was given a Yew Tree to plant, that hundredth tree is still going strong (this though is slightly exaggerated as in actual fact there were already over one hundred Yew Tr...

February has been a very interesting month this year, in aid of my own study procrastination I have walked through snow drifts in the Shropshire Hills AONB, ridden on the steepest inland funicular railway in the country, travelled to London twice, and visited Bath. Although not strictly true as much of this was done in aid of my university research into Bracken management and also the start of the dreaded post-university decision... post-grad or job?  I visited the Shropshire Hills AONB, incidentally only 30 minutes from my shared university house, to escape from a rabble of river ninjas in camouflage and face paint who through my house mates project were at the time sprinting around my house stopping spillages and general pollution all in aid of a video for the Wildlife Trusts. So while they poured cooking oil over compact cameras I took my own and looked out a walk for my family's walking holiday business. It was a stunning day with the bright sunshine only being blocked ...