Snake Head Fritillary

It was cool and cloudy this morning, even a little misty walking in the woods with Xena. However by lunchtime the sun had come out and with the longer days now the sunshine is reaching more areas of the garden, so I can go out after lunch and take photos in the sunshine. 

I have always admired these snake head fritillary flowers, so a couple of weekends ago we went to the garden centre to see if I could buy some. They did not have any, and then of all places I found some at Waitrose when doing my grocery shopping!  They are tiny little flowers, and I only bought a few so they are not exactly going to make a good show in my garden but at least it I can enjoy the few I have.

Last night I so enjoyed the talk that our Chairman at the camera club gave on his trip to New Zealand. He spent 3 months travelling over 5000 miles - which is a lot of mileage for such a small country - and went from the most northern tip of North Island all the way to Stewart Island in the south. It was extremely interesting and his photos were stunning although he said his plans were often scuppered by poor weather and he never realised how cloudy it is there (the clue is in the Maori name!) He also commented on how he could go to popular beauty spots and there were hardly any other people, something we in the UK are not familiar with. In the UK we have to get quiet creative with our photography to avoid getting other people in our images or wait very patiently for the one moment when the scene is people free.  Apparently it was even easy to photograph the birds as they are not frightened of people as so few people are around. I almost felt as if I had done the trip and it was a perfect antidote to lockdown frustration.

Over 20 million people have now received the first dose of the Covid vaccine which is an incredible achievement is such a short time.