flower and butterfly

Another day practising for retirement, so took myself off to Ratho and the canal centre. Meandered along the canal to Bridge 19 just past the Almond Aqueduct, then pottered back and had a coffee and scone in the climbing centre.

I have never been able to identify birds or flowers that I've seen out walking - when I look them up in my books at home I discover that what I've seen is either extinct or only found on the lower slopes of the Himalayas.

So today I thought aha! now I have a camera I can take pictures of the flowers along the canal and then I'll be able to match them up with the books. Ha Ha.

So I think this is water mint, but the book says it flowers from July. It is supposed to have a distinctive smell but mostly my nose was overwhelmed with that overpowering yellow rape seed plant. And my point'n'click doesn?t cater for scratch'n'sniff. The other option was common valerian, but the second book made the leaves look completely different. I find I can't tell the difference between dentate and serrate leaves. I have leaf dyslexia. Well, flower and bird dyslexia too, actually.

I first thought the butterfly was a black-veined white but that is of course extinct in Britain. So I now think it is a green-veined white.

I have started to populate my blipfolio.