Category: Photography

A Wintery Walk

On By ArtyMissKIn Photography5 Comments

Hello my friends! 

Before I start, I totally meant to post this last week but due to storm Bert I had no power (the perils of living in the countryside!!).

I am so unbelievably excited about this post as before the storm properly hit I woke up to five whole inches of snow!

Snow is one of those things that I will never get tired of and usually when we do get it here its only a light dusting, so the fact it was so deep was amazing (I literally haven’t seen so much snow since I was a kid when we lived in Scotland).

Obviously I just had to go walking in it and wanted to take you with me so you can enjoy the pretty winter atmosphere and stroll through the countryside too! I hope these photos bring as much happiness to your day as much as they did mine.

Starting off our wintery walk, I headed to one of the local fields to snap a quick landscape shot, all the fields looked so serene, every one could’ve been a scene on a Christmas card.

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Grayling {One frame}

On By ArtyMissKIn Photography2 Comments

Hey friends! 

A while back I got the chance to see a new butterfly and spent the best part of a day wandering around a place called Wheal Fortune – which is an old mining site and great hiking spot, with some awesome views! I even got to see a new type of butterfly!!

So the main focus of this One Frame is the elusive Grayling (Hipparchia semele) – it camouflages so unbelievably well with rocks and gravel that they almost disappear!

This little guy (or girl) was sunbathing in the gravel enjoying the last of the autumn sunshine, they always rest with their wings together and do this weird thing where they lean to whichever side will get more sun. Basically turning themselves into the Wally (or Waldo) of the butterfly world.

It was fascinating, I felt that if I blinked I’d lose it! I took about 50 photos of which about three actually included the fluttery fella!!

Sadly Graylings are listed in the UK as a priority species for conservation so it was awesome to not only see a few in the native habitat but snap an okay photo as well.

I really hope you like this nature filled post and that it spreads a little bit of happiness. Do you have a favourite bug? They are magical creatures and I love watching them. 

Ps. If you wanna see the landscape of Wheal Fortune I posted a One Frame HERE!

Raising a Comma Butterfly

On By ArtyMissKIn Conservation, Photography4 Comments

Hey friends! 

This week I’ve got a bonus butterfly tale for you, I’m really very excited about this one!!

Over the last couple of months I’ve been raising a grand total of 61 Red Admiral butterflies and during that time I’ve dug up many, many nettle plants for them to eat. When they start to pupate I like to add a fresh plant or two so that when they emerge there is a nice, new host plant for them to (hopefully) lay more eggs on.

At one point I had 6 Red ads pupating in a house of their own and after a few days I noticed the nettle I had prepared for them was being eaten, well, it turned out to have an occupant! One lone Comma caterpillar was quite happily eating its way through my new nettle.

Comma (Polygonia c-album) is another of our native butterflies, its one of the quirkiest looking ones we have here. They have scalloped wing edges which with the dark markings on the undersides of its wings camouflage it to resemble a dead leaf! 

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Fleeting thought #7 {Fallen leaves & favoured pastimes}

On By ArtyMissKIn Fleeting thoughts, Photography4 Comments

Hey friends,

If you’ve never been here before then welcome!! 

Today I wanted to share the seventh Fleeting Thought with you. Its been a while since my last one of these, so here goes…

Autumn is just lovely isn’t it?

The sound of the geese flying south for the winter – or the Starlings congregating in their  murmurations, where I live is actually quite close to a forest that thousands of starlings live in the winter, every day at around seven o’clock morning and night you can hear them flying overhead you can literally set your watch by them! The parks and woodlands are filled with warm, beautifully mesmerising colours – even though the weather is less on the warm side! You can get your jumpers out and it’s okay to drink hot chocolate at lunch time.

Also pyjamas, pyjamas seem to always feature more in the autumn/winter months…the anti-social introvert in me loves a jammies day, especially if I’ve got a good book to read or an embroidery to finish.

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Ore Stained Landscape {One frame}

On By ArtyMissKIn Photography

Hello my Friends!

I’ve got a new One frame to share with you this week, I recently spent the day at a place called Wheal fortune – which is an old Cornish mining sight used for mining copper and tin up until the 1880’s. 

Anyway, its been an age since I posted a landscape shot (as opposed to a tree shot) and this was such an amazing setting to be in. The mining systems in Cornwall are incredible – this is actually where the pollutants washed away and seeing how the ores have stained the landscape through human activity is weirdly heavy on the soul.

It does however make a beautiful landscape to photograph – it kinda reminds me of a Bob Ross painting (he was an oil painter in the 80/90’s and an all round nice guy) he liked to paint happy little trees…I’m very much of the opinion of in life always try to be a bit like Bob Ross!

I love the layers of this image, there’s the reflective water, the red/orange stained rocks which moves into the bright and rich tones of green and a moody sky. The views of the whole site were both amazing and horrific – its comes as a shock when you see how we (as humans) are willing to destroy the landscape in search of metals and the damage it leaves behind.

That’s it for this week, I hope you like the little slice of landscape serenity. How is the weather where you are? Next weeks post is shaping up to be a new surprise Butterfly tale! 

Thank you so much for reading this post, and I wish you a prosperous week ahead!

Hetty

On By ArtyMissKIn Photography16 Comments

Hey friends!

I had a whole range of things to post last week, but I just couldn’t, and this is a bit of a sad one…

My best bud here sadly died earlier last week. It has honestly been one of the worst weeks of my life. My beautiful Hetty who in the summer had reached her 14th birthday became unwell over about three days, she suddenly kept bumping into things and then starting having seizures and I made the heartbreaking decision to have her put to sleep.

I’ve cried a year worth of tears over the last week.

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An Early Autumn Flowershoot

On By ArtyMissKIn Photography

Hey friends!

We’ve been blessed with a few extra days of summer and I’ve been holding onto them as much as possible.

I was sitting outside a couple of days ago, listening to the bees buzzing when I suddenly noticed how many of my plants are purple! So I thought why not enjoy the last few rays of perfect sunshine and decided to go on a garden flower safari and I wanted to take you guys along with me so you can enjoy the relaxing atmosphere and pretty plants and a few bugs too! 

Starting off my flowershoot are these tiny purple daisies, I think they’re called Michaelmas daisies (a type of aster) and are a tough perennial that I don’t remember actually planting, but they’re so pretty poking out from underneath/behind other flowers that I’m not going to disturb them.

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Raising Red Admiral Butterflies

On By ArtyMissKIn Conservation, Photography2 Comments

Hey friends! I’ve got a new Butterfly tale to share with you, as over the last couple of months I’ve been raising a troupe of super friendly common garden butterflies.

Red Admirals (Vanessa atalanta) are a quick flying regular migrant to these shores and beginning each Spring flocks of Red ads travel northwards from North Africa and mainland Europe. The females that arrive here lay their eggs on common ol’ stinging nettle and from July onwards we have these lovelies to look at…although they overwinter here as well, and I saw them in the area from as early as February.

I love these butterflies they are so pretty and always happy to pose for photos if I’m quiet enough. This year I was lucky enough to find a few little batches of eggs on some of the purpose grown nettles in the garden and I fostered just a small amount of them (literally just a single leaf) and moved them into my butterfly house. Before digging them up a fresh nettle to live on.

Which is a bit weird when I think about it now.

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Magnificent Forest Dweller {One frame}

On By ArtyMissKIn Photography6 Comments

Hello my Friends!

Can you believe it, we’ve already six days into September?! Before too long the Christmas decorations will be up and we’ll be singing carols!

Anyway, I thought I’d share one of my favourite trees with you this week in a new One Frame. I genuinely think trees are one of the best things about our planet, they do so much for our eco systems and are so easily overlooked or destroyed. This particular one is on one of my favourite hikes in a little out of the way place called Saint Breward. 

Its old and gnarly with so many stout branches snaking off in all directions. I love that at some point someone decided to try and make a swing…although I think its was quite a while ago.

One of the things I love about tree-watching is trying to find faces in them and I’ve stared long enough at this one to convince myself that it does have a face (at least eyes and a nose anyway). I also think it would be perfect for a treehouse.

It won’t be long before all of its lovely green leaves turn brown and litter the ground for the long dark of winter.

But it will still be a beautiful tree.

I hope you like this little slice of tree-ish heaven as much as I do, can you see the face in the tree? Thank you so much for reading this post, and have a lovely, nature filled week!

Fleeting thought #6 {hand stitching & reflections}

On By ArtyMissKIn Fleeting thoughts, Photography7 Comments

Welcome back to another edition of my ramblings…how ya doing?! My intention really was to post this last week but I had Covid and I (not to sound dramatic) thought I was dying, literally I couldn’t get out of bed. Crazy really I managed not to catch Covid during the actual pandemic and then catch it randomly from a lady at church.

I thought I’d share a new Fleeting thought with you this week. A little different to normal this one is more of an insight into my love of embroidery.

If you’ve been following my blog for a while then you might have seen one or two of my embroidered butterfly posts. A lot of people ask me about my butterfly pins as I wear them (normally in my hair) and are often quite shocked when I tell them they are made by hand.

It kinda pushed me to the question. 

Why do I embroider things in my spare time?

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