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May 2016
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Photographers Resource |
ISSN 2399-6706 |
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Issue No: 148 |
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A family of town foxes who too refuge in our garden
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With it's two bank holiday weekends, May is
a month full of activities and events for both families and photographers.
The first May Day holiday brings with it tradition with MayPoles, Obby
Oss's in Cornwall, Donkey Processions in Malvern, Beltane, |
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and the Maldon Mud Race in Essex. At the end
of the month, the Spring Bank Holiday, you have the Woolsack Races in
Tetbury Gloucestershire, The Muncaster Festival which includes the
International Jesters Tournament in Cumbria, Cheese Rolling in
Gloucestershire and the Soham Carnival and Heavy Horse Show in
Cambridgeshire and the Cotswold Olympik Games. Take a look at our diary
page for loads more going on throughout the month. There is no excuse not
to get out and get some good pictures. |
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Many of you may have noticed the bouncing
blue heads of the Bluebell as you've been moving around the countryside,
or taken a walk in your local wood.
They start to flower from April and the intruder 'the Spanish Bluebell'
has been out in my garden for some weeks now. The Forest of Dean in Gloucestershire,
is renowned for its spectacular
carpets of native bluebells and over the last two weeks I have visited,
but although some have popped open, the carpets are not quite there yet.
Being in a forest it does not get much light, so they usually are delayed.
Perhaps this week they will be out. Did you know that:-
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the UK has some of the best bluebell
carpets in the world
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they usually flower in April and May
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they are an important early flower for
feeding bees, hoverflies and butterflies
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their sap was used to bind pages into
the spines of books
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bluebell glue was used to attach
feathers to arrows by the Bronze Age people
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in Elizabethan times they crushed the
bluebell bulb to get the starch for their ruffs and sleeves
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bees get the nectar by biting a hole
in the bottom of the bell and can reach in without pollinating the
flower, good for the bee, not so good for the bluebell.
See the links below for places to visit. |
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Bluebells
in the Forest of Dean, Gloucestershire
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As well as the Bluebells, in the wildlife
calendar there is also loads going on, with bouncing babies appearing
everywhere. In country fields you may sight wild rabbits and their
newborns feeding, or pheasants. Some of the summer bird visitors are
starting to arrive in barns and places where they can nest, such as
Swifts, Swallows and Martins, flying low over fields to catch their next
meal and to feed their newborns. Around the ponds in parks and gardens you
may see a Dragonfly or two as well as all the usual waterfowl suspects. |
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Rabbit
This is of a young rabbit taken in my back garden.
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In gardens and your flower pots, like me, you may
see an invasion of snails, or as reported in the press slugs. Snails
particularly can make a good photographic subject, they don't move too fast and
left to their own devices can create some interesting patterns with both
climbing on each other like in the photo below, or the slime patterns left
behind them as they move around the garden. The picture below used garden
snails, they were not forced or harmed in this process and they were returned to
the garden fit and well. Take a look at
Photographing Snails
to find out how we went about getting this image and others as well as finding
out what equipment we used to get this result. |
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What's New and Changed |
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Locations and Lists Updated
this month |
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Where to photograph Bluebells
Where to Photograph Bluebells in England
Where to Photograph Bluebells in Scotland
Where to Photograph Bluebells in Wales
Where to Photograph Bluebells in Northern Ireland
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We are continuing to upgrade this
website
It is taking
time, but we are continuing to move from a
Microsoft based website to something much newer and more
flexible, run on our Apple systems. This is a major change and is going on
in the background.
Our Windows computer is
often difficult to start and we have decided that should it fail,
before the new system is live, we will allow a gap of a month or two to
occur rather than waste time setting up outdated systems as a temporary
measure. So if we go missing for a month or two please check back
regularly as we will be back. Hopefully there will be no problem and we
will be able, in the near future, to switch over to the new system and as
you may have noticed we have been out collecting a vast amount of more
information to expand it. |
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Let's
Explain How This Resource Works
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two months ahead. Our monthly front page/newsletter, from the beginning,
is still available and can be accessed via our 'recent editions' link.
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If this is your first visit,
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