Aug 21st Catton Park

Field Scabious

This afternoon, I went out for a walk around Catton Park. I was there in search of plants. As you may know, plants are perhaps one of my weakest subjects of expertise. I know some flowers, but I'm no expert. If anyone wants to chip in to correct me on any of these, please do. I'm still learning. On top of that, I wanted to practice in photographing them as for some reason my bridge camera is very temperamental with plants and insects. It doesn't matter what distance I take the shot from, near or far, the image is usually blurred. Occasionally, a rare clear shot worth keeping does happen, but not after some faffing around with the camera's focus. Thankfully, plants don't move very much, except when its windy, so I can take as much time as I like until I get it right.

Ox-eye Daisy



Bird's-foot Trefoil

Strawberry Clover?

You don't have to be a botanist to enjoy wild plants, but it makes it more enjoyable to know what the names of them are Walking through the rough grass of the open field of the park, I was familiarising myself with many of the brighter coloured ones, such as field scabious, ragwort, buttercup, knapweed and clover. I was getting the hang of the basics and my camera was behaving well for the most part, producing many clear shots, as well as several duds. What I was really after, however, was a plant I would consider special or unusual, something like a broomrape or some other exciting plant hiding somewhere in the grass. Unfortunately, I was unable to find anything of that description. I did manage to see a good selection of common field plants as well as a few common blue and meadow brown butterflies and a great spotted woodpecker calling from the highest bough of an ancient oak tree.






Yarrow



Common Knapweed



White Clover

Ribwort Plantain?

Wild Cabbage?

White Wild Cabbage?

Meadow Buttercup

Ragwort







Some kind of Dock? There were clusters of them everywhere!

Horse Chestnut

Robberfly

Meadow Brown

Great Spotted Woodpecker