From the garden of the Bishops Castle Hotel, Bishops Castle, like the pictures in the previous post. Scabious flowers with a visiting bumblebee. A hoverfly also intruded in one of the shots in the sequence.
Red, red rose, Bishops Castle
A particularly vivid red rose which was one of the flowers in the (beer) garden of the Bishops Castle Hotel, built on the site of the former castle in the eponymous Shropshire town.
A tiny beetle feeding on one of the ox-eye daisy flowers of St John’s churchyard, Bishops Castle. Like many churchyards, some areas of grass are left unmown until later in the summer to encourage the growth of wildflowers.
Cucumber spider on zinnia flower
A cucumber spider (probably a female) on a zinnia flower. A common garden spider, but often missed, because its green body is inconspicuous against the green of the vegetation forming its normal habitat. The contrast with the red here, on the contrary, made it sand out clearly.
Spotted, of all places, from the garden seating of the Pharmacy Poetry bookshop’s café in Bishops Castle. The zinnia were the cut flowers on the table.
Lichens, Bishops Castle
The graveyard at St John’s church, Bishops Castle. Some of these tombstones have been standing for around two centuries, in an atmosphere low in industrial pollution, and likely lots of rainfall over the years. Ideal conditions for the growth of a variety of different lichens.
SloMo bee at work
Same St John’s wort bush as in the other recent posts, seen a few days later. I suppose it’s possible the same bee features. This time I had the camera set up to take a slow motion video.
I think the slowed-down sounds resemble the ambient noise of a wildlife film in a tropical jungle.




