Wood Anemones

What a beautiful spring weather the past two weeks! As I like sunshine and higher temperatures I will not complain, but outside everything is growing and transforming very quickly, sometimes too quick....the first Orange-tips and Green Hairstreaks have been seen and photographed yet!

Last week I felt recovered enough to go out with a small photo backpack and I decided to visit Landgoed de Utrecht to search for Wood Anemones. The last time I photographed them there was in 2005 and in the meantime a few things had changed (roads which are no longer accessible, a new golf course). After a short delay of taking a wrong path and photographing the Peacock butterfly (see my previous blog), I found near the creek a lot of Wood Anemones.

As it was a complete wilderness, caused by Japanese Knotweed which has large dry brown stalks and obviously growing there by hundreds, my new wide angle lens was useless. So I had to concentrate on individual flowers and although hundreds of Woods Anemones were flowering, it was hard to find photogenic flowers with some flowers in front of it. The best Wood Anemones were growing next to the main foot path so I had a lot of pleasant conversations as Landgoed de Utrecht is very very crowded!
But, I made a virtue of necessity and asked some of the walkers to create some shadow....they were really cooperative!

Beneath you will find three (3) photo’s as I visited Landgoed de Utrecht three times this week; if you like to see more photo’s please look on my new gallery Spring Flowers (Portfolio -> Spring Flowers).

Canon 7D; beanbag; remote release; 180 mm, 1/400s at F3.5 and ISO100

Canon 7D; beanbag; remote release; 180 mm, 1/320s at F3.5 and ISO100

Canon 7D; beanbag; remote release; 180 mm, 1/320s at F3.5 and ISO100