Go wild, go wild, go wild in the country...

...where snakes in the grass... yep I grew up in the country and after several years of living in towns and cities I am back in the country. This blog is unashamedly about the countryside - more accurately the nature reserve that lies at the back of our house - Wicken Fen.  I know I have done a lot of shots at the mill recently, so I shall do a blog about that later, probably next week; but with this glorious weather I am going to wax lyrical about my local nature reserve and post some pictures I have taken there.

So, to begin... the house is just in front of the reserve; it almost backs onto the garden so to speak, which means within about 5 minutes walk I can be down on the fen, walking along footpaths aside the Lodes (small water channels), and watching birds, dragonflies and butterflies...

My walk look likes this:

Footpath to the left, Lode fringed with common reed to the right. Other aquatic plants include arrowhead, white and yellow water lilies and amphibious bistort. 

The other side of the track is lined with hawthorn and willow - great for birds and insects alike; and as for plants... well...

the arable weed scentless mayweed...

...hoverfly on bindweed...

creeping thistle seed head...

tufted vetch...

meadow sweet...

amphibious bistort... all of the above are common and all are beautiful; 

So you can guess that I'm glad to be back and glad to be shooting this sort thing again... In my garden I have been having fun with butterflies again...

I never get tired of taking small tortoiseshell pictures... I like the way the glow in light room gives the colours added vibrancy... There will be more HERE and some of the Mill...keep your eyes open for that...

We also built one of these in the garden this morning - an insect hibernacular...

Every garden should have at least one so our crawly friends have somewhere to shelter from the bad weather... go on, you know it makes sense...

So that about wraps it up for this week... hope all is well with you guys...

TTFN