Showing posts with label butterflies. Show all posts
Showing posts with label butterflies. Show all posts

Friday, 7 September 2012

Friday My Town: Shallow Depth of Field

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A new butterfly friend I found in a wetland meadow near the lake outside town some weeks ago.

In Swedish there is one name covering a number of look-alike butterflies (‘pärlemorfjäril’ = ‘mother of pearl butterfly’). In English/Latin it turned out to be a little more complicated… I think it is probably a Small Pearl-bordered Fritillary (Boloria selene). (Feel free to correct me if you think I’m wrong!)

We haven’t had much of a butterfly summer this year, but here’s another one – the Common Brimstone:

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Have to confess I’ve not had much luck with the shallow depth of field thing except when zooming in on small things, like insects and flowers. So I think for this post I shall stick to “field” rather than “town”…

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Thistle

 

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 Haven’t got a clue what the flower is called.

 

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Himalayan Balsam (Impatiens glandulifera / jättebalsamin)

Friday, 2 March 2012

Friday My Town: Paths, Steps and Walkways

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Starting off with couple of favourites from my archives.
▲ Above: A footbridge across the river.
▼ Below: The stairs to Heaven…

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▼ Sorry, actually it’s just a footbridge over the railway

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But let’s go in another direction, because this theme also fits in with some other photos I have been meaning to post anyway.

About 10-15 minutes walk from where I live, there is a little park which I have come to call (in blogging context) my Butterfly Park – because I often go there in the late summer/early autumn to look at (and take photos) of butterflies attracted to the flowers there. Occasionally also to the walkways! ;) ▼

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The flowerbeds are surrounded by yew hedges;
below that area there is an open lawn for croquet. 
Well – depending on time of the year!

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Copied from my old blog The Island of the Voices. Can’t find the original photo.

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▲ Croquet lawn in the winter! (Good luck to you!)

▼ Now, this is how the park used to look. ▼

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The trees along one side of it offering shadow on a hot day.

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And seasonal colour changes in the tree tops.

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▲ In the background above, if you look closely, you see just a glimpse of the roof of a building behind the bare trees in winter. That’s an old military regiment building, nowadays used for other purposes. Between that and the park runs a railway, and between the railway and the park also a road, which used to be lined with trees and bushes on both sides. BUT…

▼ … in the late autumn, 2011, things started to change… ▼

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And over winter they’ve kept on changing! ▼▼▼

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▲ New view from the croquet lawn

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▲ New view when walking through the Butterfly Park.

Help! I can hardly believe it’s the same park! Was all this necessary?

I know they are going to build houses for people to live in, on the area on the other side of the railway, below the old regiment. (Some of those old buildings have been turned into apartments as well, and others into offices and school premises.)

I suppose they wanted to open up the view… But walking in that park won’t ever be quite the same again! (Oh, I guess I’ll get used to it…)

Maybe they’ll be planting new trees, in a more orderly fashion. But I’m still a little concerned for my butterflies! Even if they keep the flowerbeds among the yew hedges, with all the ‘yummy’ butterfly favourites there… I still fear the butterflies might miss the wilder environment nearby. Last autumn, I got to enjoy the miracle of seeing about a hundred newborn small tortoiseshell butterflies simultaneously in that park. Those caterpillars feed on nettles; and my guess is the eggs were laid and the butterflies “born” in the wild area of trees and bushes and weeds along the railway... With that gone, I wonder if I’ll still be seeing the park crowded with butterflies this summer???

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Anyway… I thought I’d document the changes going on!

Wishing everyone a Happy Friday My Town Shoot Out!

~Monica~

Friday, 18 November 2011

Friday My Town: Symmetry

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▲ Reflection symmetry ▲

▼ Nature’s symmetry ▼

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▼ Butterfly Symmetry ▼

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▲ One Red Admiral, one Small Tortoiseshell ▲

 

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▲ Red Admiral ▲

▼ Small Tortoiseshell ▼

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▼ Man-made symmetry: ▼
 

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▲ Medieval ribbon-weaving shown at the Textile Museum ▲

 

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▲ Kaleidoscope Symmetry ▲
made by me in Corel Paint Shop Pro X
▼ from these autumn leaves ▼

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▼ Couples Symmetry▼

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Sea lions at the Zoo – in perfect sync!

 

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This pair of grandparents (I assume)
seemed pretty much synchronized too!

~♥~♥~♥~

I wish you all a nicely balanced weekend!

~♥~♥~♥~

For more symmetry, visit Friday My Town

Friday, 28 October 2011

Friday My Town: Creepy Crawlies

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▲ …I prefer my creepy crawlies to be either big and fake as above … ▲

 

▼ …. or not at home, as below … ▼

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Oh I know I have a few bugs here and there among all my photos as well – the problem is I have not tagged them or collected them in a special folder; and have no time to go looking now.

Butterflies I have plenty; but since I never detect them until they’ve left their most creepy crawly stage behind, I’m not sure they qualify!

 

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Common Brimstone

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Red Admiral with an Attitude

 

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Cabbage Butterfly

Ooops, look what I just found in among the butterflies…

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My camera is braver than I am!

 

 

 

 

Friday, 16 September 2011

Friday My Town: ‘T’

This week’s theme for the My Town Shoot Out is the letter T.

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Tortoiseshell butterflies on Thistles

For those who don’t follow my blog regularly… We had quite an
overwhelming invasion of the Small Tortoiseshell butterfly
in ‘my’ Butterfly Park at the beginning of September.

In spite of mostly rain and wind since then, there seems to
be at least two or three dozen of them still hanging around...
(The sun came out for a while yesterday, so I went to check!)

 

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Temptations displayed in the window of my favourite Tea Shop.

Last Saturday I took part in a local photo marathon in my town.
One of the ten themes given was one word that can be translated
into English as ‘Temptation’. My choice to represent this
theme was these bowls of tea blends with exotic names:
… Tristan and Isolde … Lovers’ Dream …
… (One) Thousand and One Nights …

 

Monday, 5 September 2011

Mosaic Monday: Butterfly Invasion

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The collage above may seem exaggerated, but actually it represents ‘the truth’ better than any of the individual pictures:

 

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In my ‘Butterfly Park’ yesterday, there must have been at least around 70-80 Small Tortoiseshell butterflies fluttering around. (Perhaps even more. Not an easy task to count them!)

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Their most popular landing places were these blue flowers, which also provide excellent camouflage for these beautiful creatures.

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I’ve never seen so many butterflies at the same time. ‘Someone’ must have been busy laying eggs in the neighbourhood of park earlier in the spring/ summer…!

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The caterpillars feed on stinging nettles. I suppose there may be a good supply of those along the railway close by. From Wikipedia I also learn that how many survive to be butterflies may often depend on the status of the common wasp in a particular season, since the wasp is known to feed on the Tortoiseshell's pupae.

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Come to think of it, I’ve hardly seen any wasps at all around this August! - Good! - I much prefer the butterflies! :)

See more Monday Mosaics at Mary’s Little Red House.

Welcome to also visit my main blog: Beyond the Lone Islands