West wind

[puddleshark]

A walk up onto the Purbeck Hills to watch the west wind blowing...




The outward leg of the walk follows the path at the foot of the hill, through hazel coppice and through narrow tunnels in the hillside scrub, roofed over with brambles and bracken and old man's beard.




Above the path, midges dancing in the sunlight, and (not photographed) a hawker dragonfly hunting them on glittering diamond wings.


A fine crop of hazelnuts this year.




Gatekeeper butterfly on Burdock.


Where the path divides, I made the climb up the side of the hill. The hilltop is open access land, owned by the National Trust, with little permissive paths in all directions. You can wander as you please. Or sit a while and watch the west wind blowing through the grass.


A very parched looking August landscape, in case anyone doubted that we are in drought.


Field Scabious.

No grasshoppers singing today. The sun was hiding, and the wind was a little too fresh. A few Meadow Brown butterflies on the wing.

Comments

[vriddy]

Lovely pictures! The contrast between the green and parched areas is interesting, since I imagine they're not so far from each other.

[puddleshark]

Thank you!

Yes, the Purbeck Hills are only small, about 120m high at this point, but there's still a big contrast between the thin chalk soil on top, and the damp clay paths at the foot of the hill.

[shirebound]

Thanks for taking us along on your ramble. That green path looks so cool (we'll be at 32-33C all week).

[puddleshark]

You're welcome!

32-33C? Oof. I'm hoping we'll escape that this near the coast.

[ofearthandstars]

Even with the drought, the fields are stunning! Thank you for sharing.

[puddleshark]

You're welcome!

[loligo]

Beautiful!

[puddleshark]

Thank you!

[zana16]

Beautiful!

[puddleshark]

Thank you!

[yourlibrarian]

Such a nice set of photos! I really like the one of grasses as well. Congrats on the web one, as I've found it can be difficult to make them visible with either too much light, too little light, or bad angles getting in the way.

[puddleshark]

Thank you!

I struggled a bit with the near-invisible web. Webs are so much easier to photograph on an autumnal morning when they're hung with dew!

[full_metal_ox]

Are the top and bottom photos in black and white, or was the ambient light that greyed?

[puddleshark]

I converted those two shots to black and white. I wanted to try and capture the grass bending in the wind, and colour seemed distracting.

[full_metal_ox]

In photo #8, the dun grasses have the air of the fur of some vast recumbent animal.

[puddleshark]

😊

I'm glad I didn't wake it...

[yarnandglue]

Such beautiful soft colors! I love the butterfly photo in particular.

[puddleshark]

Thank you!

Yes, it's a very faded-looking August landscape...

[seaglassgarden]

beautiful! i love how a spider's web is visible in one of the pics

[puddleshark]

Thank you!