It was slightly cooler today as I walked around my local Nature Reserve next to my village. Everywhere is so green at the moment. As we've had lots of sunshine everything pops. Along the footpath, I noticed white fluff scattered across the ground. These are dandelion seeds that have been blown away by the wind. The seeds seem to collect at the side of the path.
As I continued my walk, I noticed plenty of dandelions still in flower. When the dandelions die, the flowers slowly change into seed heads. We used to refer to these as "fairies" or "clocks". There are many folklore stories involving dandelion fairies. I can remember as a child blowing all the fairies off the stalk with each blow representing one hour. We thought this was a way of telling the time, ie one blow, one o'clock, two blows, two o'clock etc. Innocent times.
Further along, there was a wood pigeon searching for food on the ground. They like allsorts of food, such as seeds, fruits, and plants. I always keep some birdseed in my pocket, so I threw a little bit on the ground for it.
I waited patiently for the speckled wood butterfly to stop flitting about, and finally come to rest on the leaf of a nearby tree. It has quite distinctive markings but unfortunately, it was partly hidden by the leaf. There aren't many butterflies out at the moment but it might be a little too early yet. I'm hoping for a good year.
The reserve also has hawthorn blossoms, which are along the side of the footpath which creates a lovely display of white flowers. Their sweet scent fills the air.
The mix of dandelions, hawthorn blossoms, and a few bluebells made the Reserve look really pretty.
This post is for #sublimesunday inspired by 
