Summer Colours

I’m cautiously prepared to say that we do indeed have a summer this year. It’s still hovering in the upper 70°sF and I counted no more than about 10 drops of rain today. Even the storms have given up bothering us. The landscape is feeling the heat, but showing some fine summer gold.

wheat field
Wheat field providing a touch of gold in the South Downs National Park
Single stalk of wheat
Single stalk of wheat.

There are butterflies everywhere, with a sudden influx of the brightly coloured peacock butterfly. A small swarm of them have been occupying the garden for the past two or three days, enjoying the sunshine and buddleia.

Peacock butterfly on buddleia
Peacock butterfly on buddleia
Pair of peacock butterflies on the fence
Pair of peacock butterflies on the fence

Back in the fields, a pair of meadow browns were busy making more meadow browns.

meadow brown butterflies mating
Meadow brown butterflies mating

And at home today, a small tortoiseshell joined the peacocks at the far end of the garden.

Small tortoiseshell and peacock butterfly
Small tortoiseshell with a peacock butterfly to the right.

To complete the recent set of butterfly photos, here’s a red admiral from this afternoon.

Red Admiral
Red Admiral (the buddleia’s common name is Butterfly Bush)

The other striking garden invasion has been small swarms of migrant hawker dragonflies. For the past few evenings we’ve watched 20 or more flying over the garden. They are really difficult to photograph in flight, but I did manage this shot.

Migrant hawker dragonfly
Migrant hawker dragonfly

Plus a ‘proper’ photo when one briefly took a breather on the hawthorn.

Migrant Hawker dragonfly
Migrant Hawker dragonfly

Any post about summer colour really needs a sunset, and I’m not going to disappoint. This was taken this evening.

Sunset
Sunset over distant hill

Camera note: all photos taken with the Canon 7D. Wheat field, small tortoiseshell and red admiral, and the sunset taken with the EF 400mm f/5.6L USM lens; Peacock butterflies and dragonflies taken with the EF 200mm f/2.8L II USM lens; and the meadow browns with the EF 100mm f/2.8L macro IS USM lens.

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This Post Has 6 Comments

  1. derwandersmann

    27 Jul 2014

    Lovely shots, Words … despite the heat. I recall seeing a London newspaper headline in a photo: “75° AGAIN TODAY! NO RELIEF IN SIGHT”. I wish we could keep ours down to 75°!

    1. Words

      2 Aug 2014

      dW, thanks! I know… we’re utterly pathetic the way we respond to perfectly normal weather. I think it’s that our expectations are so low and our buildings aren’t able to cope. It is a tad cooler now (nations sighs with relief).

  2. Darko

    29 Jul 2014

    Nice set of photos!!! Especially dragonflies and butterflies.

    We went to Southern interior this weekend and got our dose of summer… again. Temperatures over 30C but somewhat cold nights. And lots of butterflies and dragonflies, too 😀 I still need to find some time to go through the photos….

    1. Words

      2 Aug 2014

      Darko, thanks. The butterflies have been great recently. Glad you got to see butterflies and dragons! Look forward to seeing the pix.

      1. Darko

        2 Aug 2014

        No pics of dragonflies this time, just a couple of butterflies. Well…. 😀

        1. Words

          8 Aug 2014

          Darko, dragonflies are tricky. Just took a look at your Flickr stream and saw the orange butterfly. Nice pic! 😀

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