Damsel (Friday 29th May 2015)

Although my visits to Bowood usually provide an album of photographs, it isn't always the prime purpose of the visit. This was just as well as on this occasion I discovered when I raised my camera that I had left its memory card on my study desk. I bought a cappuccino from the Stables and took it out to the terraces to sit and read in the sunshine.

I did have my iPad with me and took a few shots with that on my walk, in the album link below, including a couple of shots of a chestnut, grown from a seedling of the Tortworth Chestnut, and planted in 1825 by the then Marchioness of Lansdowne.

When I got back to the car I found a spare card in another camera bag, so I stopped at the 'Dipper' Marden on my way home. Summer growth had made it impossible to walk close to the rivers edge in places, and my normal observation spot was fiercely guarded now by some vicious looking stinging nettles. However, from the absence of white markings on the protruding stones in the river it seemed clear that any young dippers had fledged and the family had moved on. I didn't see any of the wagtails, long tailed tits, buzzards, herons or egrets that I had seen on previous visits either, but in their place were a number of butterflies and damselflies.

They weren't proving especially amenable to photography, but I did get this female Banded Demoiselle damselfly (caloptery x splendens), one of only two varieties of damselfly with coloured wings, the other being the Beautiful Demoiselle.

L.
8.6.2015 (1240 hr)

Blip #1592 (#1842 including archived blips)
Consecutive Blip #002
Day #1892
LOTD #826 (#947 including archived blips)

A Visit To Bowood And Studley, 29 May 2015 (Flickr album)

River Marden series
Macro series

Lozarhythm Of The Day:
The War on Drugs - Red Eyes (2014)
From Lost In The Dream, a birthday present that arrived on this day

One year ago:
Bowood 2014 #18