{"id":5872,"date":"2019-09-01T21:17:04","date_gmt":"2019-09-01T21:17:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/naturalbornblogger.co.uk\/?p=5872"},"modified":"2019-12-08T21:35:30","modified_gmt":"2019-12-08T21:35:30","slug":"spur-bog-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/naturalbornblogger.co.uk\/?p=5872","title":{"rendered":"Spur Bog"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Sand Lizard, catching a few rays of afternoon sunshine at Studland Heath, Dorset<\/p>\n

Although Studland is renowned as being the best place in the country for Sand Lizards a sighting of Britain’s rarest reptile is far from guaranteed. Their cryptic markings are a superb camouflage and unless they decide to move they can remain hidden for long periods. This one appeared out of nowhere whilst I was lying down trying to find a suitable angle for a half decent photo of the Marsh Gentians.<\/p>\n

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After a few minutes basking in the warmth of the sun a cloud moved across and the Sand Lizard turned around and vanished back into the heath.<\/p>\n

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Marsh Gentian<\/p>\n

One of several to be found flowering close to the edge of the bog.<\/p>\n

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Being low growing plants and typically surrounded by taller grasses and heather I’ve always found the Gentians a bit awkward to photograph.<\/p>\n

In the first photograph I used a 150mm lens to isolate the flower from the background and whilst successful my preference with wild plants is to show a bit of context and the plant growing in its natural habitat. Fortunately this is something that the Panasonic LX10 is particularly well suited for.<\/p>\n

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Another Marsh Gentian taken from a more upright position \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n

The white spots on the inside of the petals are used by Bees and other insects to help guide them to the stigma deep inside the flower.<\/p>\n

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Oblong-leaved Sundew, also known as Intermediate leaved Sundew<\/p>\n

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English Sundew – the large straplike leaves are simply unmistakable.<\/p>\n

Interestingly to note that when an insect has been caught the whole leaf rolls up around the unfortunate victim. No chance of escape !<\/p>\n

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Another English Sundew.<\/p>\n

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Fork-leaved Sundew – a North American species that really shouldn’t be here.<\/p>\n

Since I first noticed it 4 years ago it doesn’t appear to have spread and fortunately no sign of any seedlings within the immediate area.<\/p>\n

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Plenty of Dragonflies to be found with this one being caught up in a single strand of a spider’s web.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Sand Lizard, catching a few rays of afternoon sunshine at Studland Heath, Dorset Although Studland is renowned as being the best place in the country for Sand Lizards a sighting of Britain’s rarest reptile is far from guaranteed. Their cryptic markings are a superb camouflage Read More …<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5873,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[183,4,58],"tags":[822,231,466,348,214,99,95,937,936],"class_list":["post-5872","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-flora","category-insects","category-reptiles","tag-dragonfly","tag-english-sundew","tag-fork-leaved-sundew","tag-intermediate-leaved-sundew","tag-marsh-gentian","tag-oblong-leaved-sundew","tag-sand-lizard","tag-spur-bog","tag-studland-heath"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naturalbornblogger.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5872","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naturalbornblogger.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naturalbornblogger.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naturalbornblogger.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naturalbornblogger.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5872"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/naturalbornblogger.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5872\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5985,"href":"https:\/\/naturalbornblogger.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5872\/revisions\/5985"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naturalbornblogger.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/5873"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naturalbornblogger.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5872"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naturalbornblogger.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5872"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naturalbornblogger.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5872"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}