Went out for the day with the county flora group, surveying a rather lovely meadow. Walked a bit over 2 miles at a very slow pace. We found lots of lovely plants, including the very strange fern, Adderstongue. We also found Pignut, Dropwort, Bugle and lots of all three common buttercups. Despite the sunshine, I only saw one butterfly – a Small White, but I did see a small frog.
Drybank Meadow near Shipston
Adderstongue Fern
A very pale Goatsbeard flower.
A soldier beetle reading the Flower Guide blurb
Slow and steady 
June 9, 2013 at 7:41 am
Another lovely interesting blog, I’m learning more every day reading these, photos again wonderful to see. Do you know your soldier beetle didn’t make me cringe either, love the idea of him reading about nature in his home land!!
June 9, 2013 at 1:36 pm
Glad you were OK with the beetle! I have taken some great snail and slug photos too, but am aware that some people really don’t like them! (I don’t like them eating my plants, but I’ll put up with a few so the birds can eat them.) Also some woodlice, but my daughter really hates those, so guess others might be a bit wary too. They are all fascinating close up though.
June 9, 2013 at 8:53 am
You take beautiful photos – what are you using?
June 9, 2013 at 1:34 pm
Erm… I’ll go and have a look! It’s a Sony HX-200V. A bridge camera, apparently. A bit up from a compact, but not a digital SLR. I used to have a (an?) SLR, which I loved, then went to digital compacts, but I really wanted to be able to take sharp close-ups (some of these weren’t very sharp because I’d got suncream on the lens I think – urgh!) It self-focuses, but you can move the focus point around on the viewfinder screen, so it doesn’t have to be in the centre.
Thanks. 🙂
June 9, 2013 at 5:03 pm
The sharpness is great. I’ve tended to rely on an iPhone because cameras seem so technical, I’d have no idea what I was doing, or buying.
June 9, 2013 at 6:01 pm
I didn’t have much idea either, I just went into a good camera shop (not a big chain) and asked for a recommendation for one to take pictures of flowers and insects. It wasn’t cheap, mind, and the camera on my phone does a pretty good job too, now that I’ve worked out that I need to set it to ‘close-up’ and that holding it too close doesn’t work very well). I’ve even discovered today that I can take photos down a microscope with it! (I’m that much of a wildlife geek that I have a (cheap) binocular microscope and a proper microscope.) Very satisfying taking close-ups. 🙂
June 9, 2013 at 6:02 pm
Beer does not help one to organise where to put the brackets!