Ticking Fleurs

I had thought about heading over to Ketton Quarry today, but with the continuing 'any minute now' showery weather I decided to stay local - no point spending an hour either way in the car (+ the liquid gold that runs it) in inclement conditions. Instead I headed over to Huncote Embankment and I walked around with the camera, with my bins deliberately left behind. I've come to realise that I can only focus on one thing at a time with any great success: if I am out birding with bins and camera, I see less 'other stuff' on the ground; if I am out with just the camera, I see more 'other stuff' on the ground and miss distant and flyover birds, and if I am out with a net I often miss anything that is not flying within a couple of meters of me.

Today a walked around with my face looking down and slightly ahead, the best way to spot the odd interesting plant or invert. And it worked fairly well, as I ended up finding/noticing a number of new for me flowers and a beetle. These ones.

 

Changing Forget-me-Not - a really tiny flowering plant, with loads of ripening flower spikes barely poking out of the short grass. The flowers change colour as they mature, from cream/yellow to pink/violet/blue.

Germander Speedwell - think I've just been overlooking this.

 

Ivy-leaved Speedwell - another tiny one that I've been ignoring.

Pretty sure this is Thread-leaved Water-crowfoot. No floating leaves, five petals with no overlapping, and it was in the shallow part of the large still pond rather than in flowing water.

Chrysolina hyperici - minus one antenna

The quarry was looking decidedly big and deep today for some reason. Click for bigger - those things in the middle at the botton are actually big quarrying lorries.

Glorious sun behind me, rain looming ahead ......

I did say that I would not be manically chasing 'Pan-species' ticks, and to be honest I'm not - they are just coming along naturally and with so much common stuff that I've never bothered to notice or ID it's pretty easy at the minute. 2070 as of today.