July Nature Notes

Hello Lovelies,
 please excuse this repeat posting . Due to my lack of technical knowledge I accidentally deleted this post a couple of weeks ago .So I'm sorry if you have read this post before, and especially if you left me a comment.
I'm having to re write it as I don't want to miss a month out of this series of posts 12 monthly posts inspired by Edith Holden's lovely book ...Nature notes of an Edwardian lady. Edith's beautiful illustrations were painted in 1905 . A time when the only way to capture the close up beauty and colours of nature was through the medium of paint. I think her love of the natural world around her shines through in these images.....







 The book also includes interesting folk law and facts....



Here are my photos taken of the wild plants and animals observed in my local area in July.......


       I love the field Scabious growing tall amongst the long grasses in the above picture.

Knapweed is something I saw a lot of in Cornwall last week though this picture was taken in our local country park last month. It has all the prettiness of thistle flowers without the painful thorns.....


                     
Even the easily overlooked grasses look pretty in macro........



    

I particularly like this delicate type ( sorry I'm not familiar with their names)...




I have just found out the white parts on this grass are not seeds as I originally thought , but the male part of the plant , the stigma, waiting to catch the microscopic , wind blown pollen ( the first grass pictured above has pinky stigmas).........



I did not know the name of these mini beasts ,but after my first posting of this picture Louise kindly informed me they are Red Solider beetles...........



Along the roadside verges tall grasses mingle with the frothy white meadow sweet.........



Also spotted at the roadside this Chicory.....isn't that a gorgeous blue !..........



And thanks again to another lovely reader (Garden of Daisies) for answering my plea for the name of this plant...it's Greater Willow Herb and you can spot it in the verge picture above if you look closely...........



Last month I was also pleased to spot my first Peacock butterfly this year...they are really lovely but one I would especially love to see is a Small Tortoiseshell, they were so common in my childhood but I never see them these days , I'm hoping it's just because I now live in a different part of the country and not because they are rare these days( do any of you lovelies see them ? )............



Hopefully this is an improvement on my first version of this post :0)
Jacquie x