Yellow Tutu

Just coming to the end of its summertime life.

Reach

It's a flower. It is pretty.
I have nothing more to add.

Through the Wire

When I was taking the photo, I remember feeling annoyed that I couldn't evade the ugly wire in the background, but I actually don't mind it in the finished product - it actually almost complements the shape of the veins in the flower's petals (I believe technically they're not veins but xylem. Definitely a good word to know if you want to win at Scrabble).

Crumpled Glory

I adored these flowers. They're absolutely huge, with great blousy petals; even just looking at the picture, they're such a wonderful texture that I just want to reach out and touch them.

Transparent Rose

This photo shows how transparent individual petals can be, but all together they build up into a really rich, thick colour.

Field of Gold

This photo was taken on an incredibly hot and sunny day, of a whole host of orange flowers growing outside a tumbledown greenhouse. As previous blog pictures can testify, I take quite a lot of photographs of orange flowers - I guess they must particularly appeal to me. It's such a cheerful colour that you can look over your photographs on a cold day and feel that summery glow all over again.

Water Off A Duck's Back

As predicted, this has basically turned into a blog of flower pictures. However, contrary to popular belief, I do in fact take photos of other things! And sometimes there aren't even any flowers in the background. Exhibit one: this photograph of a mallard duck. I'm quite a fan of ducks; they are both cute, and delicious with plum sauce. Some people refuse to eat them because they're so cute - but I've never understood that. To me, it always seemed a bit bizarre to say that it's okay to eat ugly animals, but the beautiful ones should live.

I've also frequently been surprised that many of my friends don't know that the brown mallard ducks are the females, and the more colourful ones are the males. One good friend of mine explained that she had always assumed they were two different species of ducks that just "liked hanging out together"...

Stripes

I'm still annoyed at myself for having sliced off the edges of the petals in this picture. I was in a hurry, we were just about to leave the garden when I suddenly saw these flowers and they really struck me. The combination of very vibrant, unusual colours with a rather standard and unexciting shape is refreshing.

Raspberry Ripple Flower, and a Fact of the Day

The pattern of these petals is stunning and reminds me of an interesting thing, which I hereby present to you as my Fact Of The Day: some flowers have markings on their petals which we can't see, because they reflect UV light that our eyes don't pick up. Certain pollinating insects can see into different spectral bands than humans, and the flowers' colouring reflects this; sometimes what appears to us as a fairy unexciting bloom looks quite different if you use a camera which is able to record ultra violet or infra red light. There's a really nice website here which has photos of different flowers shown as they normally appear to us, and coloured to show the UV patterns and fluorescence which we can't see. Some of my favourite examples include this picture, which I think is featured in Richard Dawkins' book The Greatest Show On Earth, this very jazzy example, and this rather dramatic bloom, which clearly shows the "bulls-eye" pattern that a lot of UV-patterned flowers exhibit.
So next time you see a rather plain and insipid bouquet, just remember: perhaps it's your eyes and not the flowers which are at fault...

Harlequin Ladybird

I had a lovely time taking some nice pictures of this ladybird last summer, so I was sad to find out that it's an invasive species and as far as the UK Ladybird Survey is concerned, it should be squished on sight and not treated to a photoshoot. Apparently in America it's known as the multicoloured asian lady beetle, which just seems an unnecessarily long name.

But it's not the harlequin's fault that his species is ruthlessly wiping out native ladybirds. He looks after his family, he keeps his shell shiny (if you look close you can see my reflection in the carapace), and I wouldn't be able to bring myself to squish him, even if we do meet again.

Purple Dahlia

This one I can actually identify. It is a dahlia. Of some kind. For those desirous of further information, Wikipedia tells me that the "dahlia is a genus of bushy, tuberous, perennial plants native to Mexico, Central America, and Colombia."

Interestingly, "the Aztecs gathered and cultivated the dahlia for food and ceremonies, as well as decorative purposes, and the long woody stem of one variety was used for small pipes."

It is also the name of Bertie Wooster's favourite aunt. And I think we all know that's more important.

Om nom nom

Once again I must confess that, shamefully, I don't know the name of the insect or the flower. All I know is that it's pretty and excitingly orange. And it came from somewhere in Warwickshire.

Oddlings & Ends says: Hello, World!

Hello, world!

I suspect this blog will largely be a means of justifying my obsession with photographing flowers and occassional pretty things. Henceforth, when I am standing in a garden taking pictures of the same poppy for ten straight minutes, when everyone else is already longing to seek out the tea room, I will be able to grandly announce: "It's for my blog, you know!"

And everyone will be impressed.