LITTLE ARTY JOURNEYS: Friday morning walk (Coombe Wood)

A lovely morning for a walk.

The clear reflections in the pond rippled when they were disturbed by the waterfall, fish coming to the surface or the breeze.

Young robin looking a bit windswept

So many big fish - orange, silver and black - and loads of little black ones with orange tips to their dorsal fins all so visible in the clear water.

Great clusters of Fuchsias.

First sighting of the vine that scrambles up the big trees.

Oh - I haven't been very observant then - it's almost taken over this tree already.

That's odd - two acorns and not an oak tree in sight.

I took a photo of these flowers on my last visit. It was one of the trees that the gardener had planted more recently. I couldn't remember the name but it was on a gardening programme yesterday - it's a Silk Tree. Aren't the flowers amazing! The leaves are quite striking too,

Grasses bowed down with pink tinged seeds - like a waterfall splashing onto the path.

I love the neat little curls on these blue flowers.

A pinky lilac cloud of tiny flowers floating above the echinaceas

Bee covered echinaceas.

Looking closer at the floaty little flowers - many more are opening. I heard on TV (Gardeners World) yesterday that these flowers are sterile so they don't form seeds. They're increased by splitting them at the roots. (What a shame, I was hoping to acquire a couple of seeds.)

Illuminated by the sun.

Artist at work.

Gardener mowing around the artist - left him standing on a little island of long grass.

White trumpets.

Amazing veins.

Spindle berries hanging like a mobile.

Leaves in the sunlight.

Cornus flower minus creamy white bracts.

Freshly mowed lawn.

The other kind of spindle berries - there are masses of these.

Orange petals that look as if they've all been creased neatly.

Gorgeous pink and yellow and so many buds not open yet.

Gardener in the flower bed - tying up plants that had been bent over by the strong wind and rain the day before.

Butterflies flitted about all over the place but didn't sit still for very long so it was difficult to photograph them

and dragonflies - loads of them flying back and forth over the lawn. This is my (failed) attempt to take a photo of the dragonflies - they were moving very fast! (Nice picture of the sky though.) Every so often I could see a shadow on the grass and looked up to see a dragonfly disappearing.

Tiny red flower.

Jumble of plants - contrasting structures, old and new.

Gorgeous starry seed pods.

Tiny yellow oxalis

Several reflection photos to end with.

Close up - I love the constantly changing zigzags of fresh green against the dark water.

Fabulous reflections. Strange how the reflections often seem to show up more than the real thing.

This one is deceiving. The water-line is higher than three quarters of the way up the photo. (There's a fish swimming about two thirds of the way up in the middle of the photo.)