Underhill path
Jul. 3rd, 2025 02:10 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)

Took a walk along the underhill path, through the sunlight and the dappled shade. A narrow way, made narrower in summer by the grasses and nettles and the brambles. In the shade, near silence, but for the hum of insects, the flutter of songbirds.




Further along, where the path leaves the shade of the hillside scrub for more open ground, Yellowhammers singing their wheezy songs from the hedgerow - A-little-bit-of-bread-and-no-cheeeeeeese! - and the brambles full of butterflies: Ringlets, Gatekeepers, Peacocks, Green-veined Whites.
Further along still, where the Scabious and the Knapweed are in flower among the tall hillside grasses, Marbled Whites, Six-spot Burnets and Small Skippers.

Marbled White on Knapweed.

The foaming white flowers of Hedge Bedstraw, Quaking Grass with its little fish-shaped seeds, heavenly blue Small Scabious, pink & white Restharrow.
Came back via the hilltop, in the hope that there might be Bee Orchids along the path. There weren't. There never are. But the hilltop was very beautiful, the shortgrazed grass studded with wild flowers - Small Scabious, Pyramidal Orchids, nameless Hawkweeds.


Sat on the bench partway down the hill, in the sunshine, for a while, listening to the gorse seeds pop - the sound of my childhood summers - and watching the pipits fly up from their spiky gorse perches, up to the heights, before parachuting back down.
***
Not a very successful day for butterfly photography. I'm trying out a cheap secondhand zoom lens I bought online to replace my old 55-250mm lens, which was always my favourite lens, but which has developed auto-focus problems. But I don't think the replacement 70-200mm is as good as my old lens. The image quality is not that sharp, and I can't get the same close-ups with it. It's also a lot heavier. Need to see if I can trade it back to the shop / part-exchange it for a different zoom lens.
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Date: 2025-07-03 01:32 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2025-07-04 03:06 pm (UTC)Who can resist a green portal in summer?
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Date: 2025-07-03 03:40 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2025-07-04 03:11 pm (UTC)I'm a bit more wary after rain, especially if I'm walking through bracken.
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Date: 2025-07-03 05:47 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2025-07-04 03:12 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2025-07-04 08:25 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2025-07-05 09:25 am (UTC)