The Pyramidal Orchid is so common on the chalk downs of the Isle of Wight it has been declared their County flower. This attractive orchid takes years - working underground as a bulb and relying on the presence of a specific fungus in the soil - to produce leaves and its highly distinctive pyramidal shaped head, which is a densely packed cluster of up to one hundred pale-pink or reddish-purple flowers. At the southern tip of the Indre-et-Loire département (37) of France where I live the seasons are in advance of much of the UK by two to three weeks, so here the Pyramidal Orchid flowers throughout May and into June on the warm, chalky, lime-rich soil banks edging many roads I cycle along.
It surprised me, the first time I passed through the small town of Saché, in the Touraine region of central France, that there was not a bunch of teenagers swinging on this giant attraction... but there again, this is rural France, and there are no signs of spray-paint graffiti, nor trainers tied together and linked to the bar holding the primary red and blue coloured disks in perfect balance and with invisible strength against, and resisting with opposite force, the breezes of many seasons and years that have swirled over, around and through this simple, classic mobile sculpture by the American artist Alexander Calder. Perhaps the local population are mesmerized by the graceful, unpredictable slow-motion of this "live" creation... it has been located in their town square for many years, overlooked bu Calder's old studio on a hillside above the town.
In this age of digital everything, there are fears that printed books are going to fall by the wayside... but there is still a strong demand for the written and printed word that can be held in both hands, read, closed and put aside for a few hours, can be annotated, underlined and even pages torn from the binding and inserted into one's personal wallet. Or, they can be thrown away after being read... recycled... or let go back to nature. These examples from a popular exhibition in France made their point to the thousands of visitors who stopped, looked and understood an important message!
Apple Blossom is beautiful in its own right at any time of the day... but on a warm Summer evening in France with the setting sun slowly sinking to a low horizon and back-lighting a single blossom flower, then the real beauty of the fruit tree's colourful display comes to life.
Red Poppies are always a joy to see waving and bobbing about on a Summer breeze... these could almost be anywhere in the French countryside with fields and lanes throughout the land being bordered with swathes of this wild plants' bright, but delicately fragile, scarlet flowers.
In the département of Indre, in central France, lies an area of more than a thousand lakes known as "la Brenne." All the lakes were man-made following natural flooding after clay extraction for building materials. However, this has resulted in a wonderful habitat for both wild animals and migratory birds. I have visited this local area many times but mainly to photograph the dozens of semi-wild horses which roam in herds of twenty to thirty or more. Because there is so much natural grassland to feed on, and the extent of the largely unfenced habitat, they rarely approach... but on that odd occasion I have been ready with my camera... and an apple from my pocket.
One day when out photographing wild orchids here in central France, this beautiful Black-Veined White Butterfly (Aporia crataegi) started flirting with me... always within arm's length. So I waited and waited until she became tipsy on nectar from the Tufted Vetch (Vicia cracca) and then made a few exposures. I was surprised to learn that although I've seen many of these beauties in France, they have been extinct in the UK since the 1920s.
