Thursday, August 04, 2016

Pinsla Gardens, Bodmin

One of the gardens in Cornwall that Helen has wanted to visit for a long time now is Pinsla Gardens, located near Bodmin.  We finally got our act together to visit on Saturday morning towards the end of July.   It's a delight, they sell tea and coffee, and have an amazing variety of plants in a relatively small area.   More info here:  http://www.pinslagarden.net/

I was snapping before we even got into the garden, the overnight rain was still suspended on some of the leaves:


Pinsla is alive with insects and birds, I saw 9 or 10 species of butterfly and 20 or more of bee, the place was buzzing and alive too with birds zooming around feasting themselves.

One plant seemed to attract all sorts of species:


The gardeners are artists so there's lots of colour and form in the garden:


And lots of variety of food sources for the insects:




I retraced my steps on a number of paths as they look completely different just by turning around, there's so much to see and so much colour and life:



In terms of the butterflies, this is a Red Admiral:


 And this a Silver-washed Fritillary.   I'm fairly sure we saw High Brown too but no photos so we're headed back soon to try again (the garden is alongside one of the few remaining strongholds of this species):


No idea what species of fly this is but the colours are outstanding: 


My only regret was not taking my tripod, i think the quality of the images could have been notably improved by more stability:


Union Jack flower?


Again the colour and form and structure was really enjoyable:


I could have stayed a lot longer just photographing the insects and the flowers but we had to head off.   I'm looking forward to my next trip.