Saturday 13 September 2008

Photohunter: wild

At this time of year in our area there is a super-abundance of wild food available for wild life.


A butterfly still finding there are plenty of wild flowers. Who could have named this the Common Blue? It's far too beautiful to be called common.


Wild figs, not yet ripe. Passers by try them but I know from experience they have little flavour. The wild birds appreciate them though.


Hips on a wild rose bush. Once these used to be collected by the sack load in country areas. Now they are left for wildlife.


Haws on the hawthorn bushes are plentiful too this year. They won't last long.
O, hips and haws are scarlet,
And all my time's my own,
So I will go to Yarlet
Or maybe into Stone;
For Autumn is the season
And golden is the morn,
And clearly shows the reason
That ever I was born. (Updated to add: from "Staffordshire" by Oliver Davies)


These luscious looking blackberries were well out of reach so unlikely to be grabbed by locals for bramble jelly or apple and bramble crumble/pie. In fact I'm not at all sure that apple and bramble anything ever figures in the French culinary vocabulary. J, do you know? Crumble has been becoming increasingly popular but it never resembles a real crumble as I know it.

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32 comments:

  1. Great choice of pics there, A.

    Re haws: For some reason (specifically, because haw flakes are a popular sweet), had thought they were only found in China!

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  2. Great shots of nature's bounty! Have a happy weekend

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  3. I love this post. The butterfly is such a good catch, and the rest of your photos clearly display the glory of the autumn season.

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  4. How lovely to have such wild food within your reach! I have never seen any of those plants!
    Happy Weekend!!

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  5. I love the picture of the butterfly on the Scabious. Those two bits of bright colour *punctuate* the picture.

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  6. Lovely to see fruits in the wild! And I so love that butterfly pic too!

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  7. All great photos for this week. The butterfly is beautiful.

    Happy Weekend.

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  8. Great sequence of wild plants. This is the season for the wild plants to be abundant before they are gone in winter.

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  9. That butterfly is so pretty! I have never seen one that color before.

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  10. These are all great shots, and making me hungry! :)

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  11. Those are great. Love the poem, too.

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  12. Great sequence of shots. Love wild flowers and your poem!

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  13. Wow... lots of wild things over here. I trying to figure out how to get those hawthorn fruits over here.. haha.

    They make great beverage (slow boil the fruit with rock sugar) either hot or chilled and there have a great medicinal value in flushing out fat and cholesterol in the body. A natural weight loss product. :P

    http://crizcats.blogspot.com/

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  14. I live in a region that doesn't have those luscious looking berries. Wild plums, yes, something called gooseberries, yes. Beautifully wild. :) Wonderful poem. Yours?

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  15. Fabulous shots. Love the butterfly and OH THE BLACKBERRIES! YUMMY!

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  16. I love blackberries yummy! I really like your butterfly photo, I love purple!

    http://ladykli-goingonaphotohunt.blogspot.com/

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  17. Mumm... Blackberries! What did they use the hips for?

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  18. Great shots! I have blackberries on my post today too! Have a great weekend. :D

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  19. What a great post well documented by lovely pics proving the wilder the better.

    I just love blackberries! They are not easy to find in Norway, but I love them warm together with vanilla ice cream :-)

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  20. never new that wild plants could be that beautiful! nice one, A.!

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  21. Lovely photos. Those blackberries look fabulous! They're impossible to find here in Japan, raspberries either for that matter.

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  22. wow! very pretty photos! some I've never seen before like the hawthorne bushes & figs...hmmm, thanks for sharing those:)

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  23. I love all wild things.It is funny how some of the beautiful flowers I have here in my neck of the woods are considered weeds. I have wild blackberries and wild black raspberries that grow on my property. I make blackberry jelly every year.

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  24. that's a nice series for the theme.

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  25. I remember picking blackberrys with my mother as a child. She was from Tennessee. Southerners offen call unripe things "green". She would tell me to remember not to pick the red berries. Because, "When the blackberries are red, they're still green."

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  26. you always find so delicate photos. Love all of them. And the butterfly... ahhh.... a memory only over here, they've all gone by now.

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  27. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  28. Many thanks for all the great comments. To answer a few questions/points:
    I had no idea hawthorn berries, haws, were used for anything until reading these comments. Around here they are eaten by birds in a couple of months. I have found a recipe for stewed haws which is probably no different from any other stewed fruit, but I don't fancy it. Not at all.
    Rose hips used to be collected for making into rose hip syrup, rich in vitamin C, and which used to be given to babies during the war years because of the difficulties with rationing.
    A shame for those of you who can't get blackberries. I think they are one of the delights of autumn.
    Ettarose, I haven't made blackberry jam for years, any jam in fact. But sloe gin is another matter :)
    Max, your mother was entirely logical :)
    Lifecruiser, butterflies already gone? :( We still have quite a few left.

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