Purple and yellow

My morning walk was again delightful even if very soggy underfoot and at one stage I was being followed by two of the horses from the local hotel as they and their riders enjoyed a trek in the woodland. The dogs and I soon branched off into the moorland and this morning I was determined to capture something of interest as I was no longer hindered by having Cara on the extended lead - the vet having given us the allclear this morning! The swaying grasses are now at least knee high and although looking spectacular, I had already blipped them. So I headed off into the deeper marshy area towards a haze of purple and came across a largish group of marsh thistles, with a few foxgloves in the background. These thistles are quite tall, and can grow up to 7' although these ones were about 5'. They have a very strong main stem which is covered in small but sharp spines, but have very few branches. The flowers break out at the top of the stem in a cluster of small dark purple rosettes. I took shots at the various forms of large flies (I think) that were buzzing around the flowers but I liked this one best of a white tailed bumblebee as it contrasted so well with the deep purple blooms. Mind you it took a while to get a good shot as he kept moving about from flower to flower and then either Bruce or Cara would come charging along to see what I was up to - and the bee flew off!

I also saw a number of butterflies hovering around and tried taking several shots, but again they flitted about so quickly. I was actually hoping they might alight onto a thistle but no luck. Eventually I managed a good shot and once home I checked it on Google and I think it is a ringlet. Please tell me if I have the wrong ID. If anyone had told me a year ago that I would be striding through knee high grasses on boggy, marshy ground looking for bees, butterflies and thistles I would have completely disbelieved them. This is what blip does!

The afternoon was spent with two friends who needed more fabric for patchwork and quilting so we all had a jaunt to our favourite shop and spent a successful two hours debating colours and tones and finally buying!