I regularly ride my mountain bike through the refrehsing trails at the National Arboretum then I continue on to Cork Oaks Plantation, which was a forestry venture in the original plan for Canberra. One morning, I had a good look at the trees, thinking there must be some photographic subjects among them. I decided to return on a weekend with my camera, which is how I came to be there on the Saturday of this blog post. I was not disappointed in my wandering around the plantation. I found some interesting trees, especially the trees that had fallen down but were still growing, as well as two species of butterflies to photograph. I never thought I would be into photographing trees but I really enjoyed it so I hope you enjoy looking at the photographs.
Blown over Cork Oak still growing
(Canon EOS 7D Mk II with a Canon EF-S 18-55mm f3.5-5.6 IS STM [ISO 200, 27mm, f/16 and 1/13 SEC])
Cork Oak pushed back still growing
(Canon EOS 7D Mk II with a Canon EF-S 18-55mm f3.5-5.6 IS STM [ISO 200, 18mm, f/6.3 and 1/50 SEC])
An arch of Cork Oaks
(Canon EOS 7D Mk II with a Canon EF-S 18-55mm f3.5-5.6 IS STM [ISO 200, 18mm, f/16 and 1/6 SEC])
Two untapped Cork Oaks
(Canon EOS 7D Mk II with a Canon EF-S 18-55mm f3.5-5.6 IS STM [ISO 200, 18mm, f/11 and 1/13 SEC])
Stunted Cork Oak
(Canon EOS 7D Mk II with a Canon EF-S 18-55mm f3.5-5.6 IS STM [ISO 200, 18mm, f/11 and 1/25 SEC])
Even a stump has life
(Canon EOS 7D Mk II with a Canon EF-S 18-55mm f3.5-5.6 IS STM [ISO 400, 33mm, f/10 and 1/30 SEC])
Walking from the car park to the actual plantation there is a small pond on the right. On the banks of the pond there were at least three Common Grass Blue (Zizina labradus) butterflies. They were were on the wet soil with their proboscis in the ground itself, mud puddling, that is extracting liquid nutrients out of the soil.
Common Grass Blue
(Canon EOS 7D Mk II with a Canon EF100-400mm f4.5-5.6L IS II USM [ISO 250, 400mm, f/9.0 and 1/800 SEC])
On the leaf litter in some sunny patches of the Cork Oak Plantation itself there were a number of Common Brown (Heteronympha merope) butterflies. They would fly around for a while then land on the leaf litter.
Common Brown Butterfly
(Canon EOS 7D Mk II with a Canon EF100-400mm f4.5-5.6L IS II USM [ISO 250, 400mm, f/9.0 and 1/800 SEC])