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Notes by Rick Gaehl | export

 I'm in Cumbria this week, and a lot of the stone walls and banks have lovely, yellow poppies growing on them. I do like a California poppy.

#Photography #Spring #Bloomscrolling #Yellow #Flowers

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 This is tristagma uniflorum or the spring starflower.
Every year they appear in our garden about this time - mostly in the gaps between the paving stones. I don't know how they got there, and they weren't planted by me, but they are always a cheerful and welcome sight.
Apparently, they originally arrived in the UK from Argentina in the mid C19th.
They seem to be tough little hombres...

#Photography #Gardening #Flowers #Spring

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 I met these amazing trees last weekend. They are small-leaved limes, and you don't see many this tall. I reckon these were at least 20m, but they may have been bigger.

From somewhere around 10,000 BC till the Late Neolithic, about 1,000 BC, limes were the dominant species in the ancient wildwood of Southern Britain.

Imagine walking through mile after mile under a high canopy of these majestic trees. I'd have loved that...

#Photography #Trees #Nature #Environment #History #ThickTrunkTuesday

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 Continuing with my butterfly theme from yesterday, here is another visitor to our orchard this week. This one is a comma butterfly. Its ragged wings help it to look like a fallen leaf when they're closed, and this will help it to survive overwintering.

#Photography #Macro #Nature #Butterflies #Orchard #Gardening

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 Here is a man of the woods, who I encountered a few weeks ago in a sculpture garden on the edge of #Dartmoor. 
We seemed to get on well...

#Photography #MonochromeMonday #BlackAndWhite #Sculpture #WoodCarving #Woodland #Devon

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 A couple of months back, we created this wildlife pond.
It seems to be settling in nicely and is greening up around its margins.
I'm particularly pleased with how happy the two alder trees seem about their new neighbour. 
I'm looking forward to seeing what sort of wildlife takes up residence over the next couple of years. 

#Nature #Conservation #Environment #Ecology #Pond

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 These rough steps lead down to the beach at Musselwick Bay, near Marloes.
As I was walking up them one day, I met a chap who said he'd known the guy who cut them. He was an elderly fellow, apparently, who would come down every day with a hammer and stone chisel, and work away till his chisel was blunt. In the evening, he'd sharpen his chisel again, ready for the next day's labour.
Now that is really public service at its finest...

#Photography #Psychogeography #Beach #Coast #Stairs #Black

https://media.mstdn.social/media_attachments/files/111/062/639/355/848/650/original/fea9230605c00212.jpeg 
 Yesterday's photo was very recent, but today's is very old. 
This one was taken in 1973, on Crete, with my very first SLR camera. It was before the days of digital cameras, or mobile phones, or even home computers, and I had only just taken my first plane flight.
Being able to post photos I took 50 years ago sometimes makes me feel quite old, but at other times the past feels like, well, just yesterday...

#MeerMittwoch #Photography #Seascape #Coast #Silhouette #Psychogeography

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 If it's Friday, it must be time for a window.
I'll leave you to create your own narrative about what is going on here though.

#FensterFreitag #WindowFriday #Photography #Landscape #View #Psychogeography

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 SOME BASTARD HAS JUST GONE AND CUT THIS TREE DOWN. WHY?

I'm feeling in a bit of a #monochrome mood this week, so this is my offering for #ThickTrunkTuesday. 
This is Sycamore Gap, on Hadrian's Wall in Northumberland. It's a fine tree but the place is only called Sycamore Gap on maps because of someone, when the OS were remapping the area, who was asked if the spot had a name.
This is said to be the most photographed tree in the UK.

#Photography #BlackAndWhite #Landscape #Trees #Psychogeography

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