08 Wednesday May 2019
Posted in 365DaysWildin2019, flowers, nature, spring, wildflowers
Tags
#365DaysWild, blue flowers, blue wildflowers, British flora, pink flowers, pink wildflowers, wildflowers
Rain, rain, rain today but I managed to get out for a local bimble without getting too wet.
Due to the risk of rain damaging my good camera, I just took my point-and-click and, as there weren’t many insects braving the weather, the subject today had to be inanimate, in this case wildflowers, for no particular reason in shades of pinks and blues. Can you name them?
20 Saturday Apr 2019
Posted in 365DaysWildin2019, flowers, nature, plants, spring
It doesn’t matter what name you call it by – Ramsons, Londoner’s lily or Wild garlic – it smells. Some people even find the smell overwhelming but I don’t mind it, and when you see Ramsons flowering en masse, they’re really very lovely.
According to Richard Mabey in my ever-useful Flora Britannica, Ramsons were ‘unmistakable and abundant enough to figure in Old English place names’ and he gives the following examples: ‘Ramsey Island off Pembrokeshire; Ramsbottom, Lancashire; Ramsdell, Hampshire; Ramsholt, Suffolk; Ramshope, Northumberland; and Ramshorn, Staffordshire’.
Here in Penarth, the banks of the stream that flows alongside Alexandra Park are carpeted with Ramsons at this time of year, and their growth is also lush in the wild gardens in Cardiff’s Roath Park and under the trees in Bute Park’s woodland trail. Get sniffing!
14 Sunday Apr 2019
Posted in 365DaysWildin2019, flowers, nature, spring, wildflowers
I know these gorgeous wildflowers as Cowslips but they have a wealth of other names, including Hey-flowers, Peggles, Paigles, Culverkeys and Bunch of keys, according to the entry in my Flora Britannica. Perhaps you know other local names for them.
One thing I didn’t know until today is that the name Cowslip is a euphemism for ‘cow-slop’ or cow pat because these lovely blooms often grow best in fields that have been well ‘fertilised’ by cows.
p.s. My Facebook friend George has very kindly corrected my flower identification: ‘The first and last photos are false oxlips rather than true cowslips, these are hybrids between cowslips and primroses and have slightly bigger, paler and more open flowers.’ I must pay more attention next time I’m looking at wildflowers!
10 Wednesday Apr 2019
Posted in 365DaysWildin2019, flowers, insects, nature, spring, wildflowers
Tags
#365DaysWild, British butterflies, Cuckooflower, Orange-tip butterfly, Orange-tip egg, Orange-tip female, Orange-tip male
A sequence of events that unfolded before me this afternoon….
A male Orange-tip butterfly feeding on one of its favourite flowers, and the host plant for its caterpillars, the Cuckooflower.
Finished feeding on that flower, the male flies on and suddenly smells a female. Woohoo!
Sadly for him, this female has already mated, which is why she’s holding her body in that odd upright manner. He remains hopeful for a moment or two, then gets the message and flies off.
I follow the female who flies to another flower. She’s not eating so what’s she’s doing, I wonder.
Aha! Can you spot the single egg attached to the flower stalk, in the very centre of the picture? I’ll have to go back in a week or so and see if I can spot any caterpillars on these flowers.
04 Thursday Apr 2019
Posted in 365DaysWildin2019, flowers, nature, spring, wildflowers
We’re in the grip of a wintery blast here at the moment, though without the snow my friends in the Valleys have (not) been enjoying. Luckily, I managed to time my stroll around the local parks to coincide with a break in the heavy rain and hail showers, searching for whichever wildflowers I could find in bloom. They’re all rather damp but I quite like them adorned with raindrops.
31 Sunday Mar 2019
Posted in 365DaysWildin2019, flowers, nature, spring, wildflowers
Now before you feel the need to correct the spelling of ‘merry-gold’ in my title, let me just say that it was deliberate because I find Marsh marigolds such cheery, merry flowers, and it always makes me smile to see them. I spotted some yesterday in Cardiff’s Heath Park, and they’re also in full flower at the moment in Penarth’s Alexandra Park, where I went for a meander earlier today.
23 Saturday Mar 2019
Posted in 365DaysWildin2019, flowers, nature, spring, wildflowers
Almost …
Nearly there …
Yes! My first Bluebells of the year today in St Augustine’s churchyard in Penarth.
04 Monday Mar 2019
Posted in 365DaysWildin2019, flowers, nature, wildflowers
When I see violets, I always think of my nana Johno, my mother’s mother. She always had violets growing in her garden and would often pick a few to bring inside so she could enjoy their sweet scent. I spotted these particular violets on my way to Cosmeston this morning, growing wild on a grassy bank. I wasn’t able to smell them but I’m fairly sure these are Sweet violets (Viola odorata), which, as well as the traditional purple colour, can also be found in this pretty white variation.
23 Saturday Feb 2019
Posted in 365DaysWildin2019, flowers, nature, plants, wildflowers
The French dent-de-lion, lion’s tooth (from the shape of its leaves), became, in English, Dandelion, that wonderful burst of wildflower yellow that lights up grassy meadows and roadside verges, and provides an important early source of pollen to emerging insects. I couldn’t go past this particularly lush flower as I stomped down the zigzag path this afternoon.
16 Saturday Feb 2019
Posted in 365DaysWildin2019, flowers, nature, spring, trees
Today was a chores day so I just had a little tootle around my local haunts. But my photo was taken right outside my house. As a first-floor-flat dweller, I don’t have a garden but the tiny stone-filled front yard of my building has a magnificent Cherry tree, which fills half the view from my living room window and brings me great joy throughout the year. I have been watching its buds swell fatter and fatter until, finally, today the first several of its blossoms have opened.
