Fruits of our hedgerows

It has been a while since I have had the opportunity to walk our dog along the lane as two of my children have taken on that responsibility between them as they are on their holidays from school and university. Today no-one else was around which gave me a good excuse to take my camera out for a stroll with our dog. I was amazed at how much things had moved on even though I drive up and down the lane every day! We still have the odd dandelion seed head scattered along the verges.

I really love to see teasels the way they stand majestically towering above everything else.

Bindweed seems to be weaving it's path through everything else, of course it is there all the time but not noticed until the stunning white flowers appear.

I guess as we are nearly into August, I should have expected to see signs of late summer fruits, but I really wasn't expecting to see so much. such as the amount of bittersweet berries which are already starting to turn red.

Sloe berries are appearing.

Blackberries are also starting to ripen

Elderberries are promising another good crop here, although they still need time to turn into their deep dark purple, it is always best to wait until their stems of the fruit clusters turn purple or red.

If you look carefully you can also find hazel nuts or cobnuts.

I also saw so many butterflies today, including this Red Admiral,

There really are a lot of  these around this year - Gatekeeper

Small White

Speckled Wood

Comma

This Peacock butterfly had a damaged wing

My first holly blue butterfly of the year, not a great photo as it was raining by the time I took this picture,

A large dragonfly flew past me but unfortunately didn't land, but there were a good number of these. Any ideas anyone?

If this afternoons stroll is anything to go by there could be a good harvest from our hedgerows to be gathered, maybe this year I might be tempted, we will see!