A Day at the Garden Centre

Scotsdales, a large garden centre in Cambridge invited members of Cambridge Camera Club to come along to take photos of plants today (Sunday) we mostly split our time between shooting plants on display and bringing them back to the conference room which they had loaned us to try som more controlled set-ups  I was so taken with the blue hydrangea that I brought it home.  Must now buy some ericaceous compost to keep it blue!

Cambridge Polo Club - 4 August 2019

My first attempt at photographing this sport.  A very friendly atmosphere at the club and excellent facilities. This is a very small selection from my photos on the day

The Flexibility of the Polo Stick

My Ball!

Hot Pursuit

On the Line of the Ball

Goal Scorer's Salute

Making a Run

Gatekeepers, hover fly, flesh fly, wasp spiders and unknown ?wasp?

A group of CCC members went for a bug hunt on Lark Rise Farm nature reserve.  Some of us were keen to see the wasp spiders which had been seen and photographed by Ann Miles'  Ann didn't ley us down. Notice the distinctive ladder in the web. In the meantime we saw hover flies species unknown to me), numerous Gatekeeper butterflies varying from the pristine to the very tatty! Also the Boris Bumble (second picture) and a very patient bee nectaring on the brambles, a flesh fly which I have often seen, but never photographed.  Finally a wasp (I think) on a dandelion.

The "Boris Bee"

A Peacock and some Painted Ladies

We have had lots of Painted Ladies through the garden this week as well as Peacocks.  Very choosy about where they will nectar.  Neither species takes interest in any other flowers than buddleia.  Learning to control extension tubes to get in closer.  Mostly taken against the sky.

Does a butterfly have a "threat pose"?

New Forest Ponies with Tom Gould

We spent the weekend visiting a friend who lives in the New Forest.  Her son, Tom, is a Commoner and farms about 300 acres in the Forest.  On Sunday morning he took us out in his 4 wheel drive truck to see some of his ponies in the forest.  Rather than running away from humans, they stayed as they thought there might be food in the offing!  This is a group of mares with foals and yearlings at foot.  We also visited a stallion with a couple of mares and foals, but they hung about a steel gate and a barbed wire fence which didn't make nice photos.

The Vyne

On Monday we visited The Vyne, a National Trust property near Basingstoke.  The Vyne is a 16th century estate and country house built for Lord Sandys, Henry VIII's Lord Chamberlain. Henry is supposed to have stayed there.

The gardens are less formal than some NT properties and all the better for that.  This week the jewel of the garden is the wild flower meadow in the walled garden

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This first photo of the house from across the lake is stolen from Wikipedia.  The rest are mine.

This wing shows how much the walls have moved!

The ceiling decorations are all made with papier maché to reduce the weight 

 I don't think that I've ever seen a Wisteria grown as a tree before

 The Wild Flower Meadow

Lots of bees around the walled garden.  Anyone for onion honey?!